The Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Robin Palmer

  “Well, I’m sure that’s part of it,” she agreed. “But I think most of it was because of the candle.”

  I’m sorry, but sometimes it was hard not to want to be right. Did she realize how insane she sounded?

  “Well, the candle and my vision board,” she added.

  Apparently, she did not. A vision board was a bulletin board on which you pinned up stuff that you wanted in your life. Kind of like an old-school Pinterest thing.

  “So where are we going?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “To Fred Segal,” she said as we drove down Pico Boulevard.

  Fred Segal was one of the most expensive stores in L.A. “For what?”

  “For something for me to wear to the audition!” she exclaimed. “Even though, you know, it’s probably not an audition. More just a meet-and-greet before officially offering me the role.”

  “Mom, we don’t have any money for you to be buying new clothes,” I said. “We barely have enough to pay the rent.”

  “Annabelle, I appreciate your concern,” she said in her high-pitched I’m-the-mother-here tone. “But I’m the mother here, and I’ll decide how the money gets spent.”

  “But we don’t have any for you to spend!” I shot back.

  She shook her head. “What do you think it’s going to say to the universe if I stop trusting it and show up dressed in some rag?”

  “The universe doesn’t care!” I cried. “Because the universe did not get you this audition! I did!”

  The minute the words were out of my mouth, I tried to breathe them back in.

  She slammed on the brakes. Which, thankfully, happened to coincide with our hitting a red light. “What are you talking about?”

  So much for being spiritual. “The reason you got the audition is because I went to see Billy Barrett and asked him if he could talk to the producers and have you come in,” I confessed.

  The light turned green, but Mom didn’t move. “Why did you do that?” she asked quietly.

  A horn blared behind us. “I don’t know,” I said nervously. “Because I didn’t want you to quit acting. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she muttered, shaking her head as she began to drive. “Talk about humiliating.”

  “Yeah, well, how about a thank-you?” I shot back unspiritually.

  “For what?” she snapped. “For butting into my business and not respecting my boundaries?”

  Ever since rehab Mom had been big on the B-word and managed to work it into a conversation at least three times a day. “Since when have we ever had boundaries, Mom?”

  “That’s it—we’re not going to Fred Segal,” she said, slamming on the brakes and doing a U-turn smack in the middle of Pico Boulevard. Which, given her lack of driving ability, was impressive. I would have complimented her if we hadn’t been in a fight.

  “Good! BECAUSE WE CAN’T AFFORD IT!” I yelled.

  “STOP SAYING THAT!” she yelled back.

  The rest of the ride was spent in silence. At least until I couldn’t bear the silence because it made the Why are you such a bitch? Why did you have to do that? What’s WRONG with you? monologue in my head even louder and meaner, so I turned on the radio to KROQ. Until Mom reached over and clicked on her Meditations for Calming Down in Traffic CD, on which, over the sound of waves, a woman’s gentle voice said, “There’s no reason to get upset. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be at this moment. And you’ll get to exactly where you’re going at the divinely appointed time.” Until I turned it off because the monologue in my head was slightly less annoying than the anti–road rage lady.

  I tried to open my mouth to say “I’m sorry,” but it was as if it had been wired shut. Was I sorry? What I was was confused. In the past, if I had done something like this, maybe Mom would’ve gotten mad for, like, a minute or so, but then she would’ve been happy that I had helped and she would’ve gone into her what-did-I-do-right-in-a-past-life-to-deserve-the-best-kid-in-the-universe speech.

  Because if I wasn’t helping; if I wasn’t being useful; if I wasn’t saving the day, who was I? That’s what I did. That was my role. I was never going to be as pretty or talented or famous as my mother. I was never going to light up a room like she did. So I had to do something.

  “Do you want me to run lines with you?” was what I said in lieu of an apology.

  No response.

  “So now you’re not talking to me?”

  Nothing.

  My stomach started to clench. She knew I hated when she wouldn’t talk to me. Some kids got smacked by their mothers. I got the silent treatment, which, in my opinion, was just as bad.

  “Fine. Don’t talk to me. I don’t care,” I said, hating myself for caring as much as I did.

  When we got back to the apartment, we stomped off to our respective bedrooms and closed the doors forcefully. (Because they were so cheaply made, you couldn’t slam them or else they would literally fall off their hinges, and then you had to wait for Samir, the landlord/very-unhandy handyman, to come fix it, which, because he hated the fact that back in Iran he had been a doctor but now spent his time unstopping stopped-up toilets, made the whole thing very uncomfortable.)

  As I tried to do my homework, I listened for the sound of Mom’s door opening. When it came and I heard her banging around in the kitchen, I opened mine and walked out.

  “It’s dinnertime,” she said icily. She opened the freezer, pulled out a Lean Cuisine, and threw it down on the counter. “But because you’re so intent on running the show, I’m done cooking for you. You’re on your own,” she said as she pulled a can of chickpeas out of the cupboard and clamped the can opener on the lid.

  It was a good thing I had learned how to “cook,” i.e., push the buttons on the microwave, back when I was five. “Fine,” I replied.

  We stomped around in silence for a bit. “I was just trying to help,” I finally said.

  She looked up from the can, which, as usual, she couldn’t get open because it didn’t have buttons. “Annabelle, ‘helping’ is zipping up someone’s dress,” she said. ‘Helping’ is cutting the price tag off her sweater.” She went back to butchering the can. ‘Helping’ is not tracking down a major star and begging him to allow your mother to audition for his movie after everyone’s decided she’s a washed-up has-been!”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think you’re a washed-up has-been!” I said as I broke down and grabbed the can from her before she hurt herself. “I think you’re someone who’s had really crappy luck lately and deserves another chance!”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t think I should go in to audition.”

  “What?!”

  She shrugged. “If I were supposed to, it would have happened organically, without interference from anybody. Plus, I told you, I want to work at a rehab.”

  “You’d rather stand outside a bathroom listening to people pee so you can make sure they give clean drug tests rather than star in a movie?”

  She cringed. “Would I really have to do that?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I saw it on Celebrity Rehab once.” And then it hit me. She was scared. I put my hands on her shoulders. “Mom, you can do this,” I said. “It’s just an audition.”

  “But what if I don’t get it?” she asked quietly. “Then what, Bug? “‘Cause I have to tell you—I’m running out of ideas here.”

  “Well, if you don’t get it . . . I guess the universe has other plans for you,” I replied.

  That was pretty freaking spiritual, if you asked me.

  THINGS I PROMISE TO DO IF MOM GETS THE MOVIE

  Throw out all Play-Doh and Barbie heads.

  Stop stalking Olivia and Sarah’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and spending time making up stories about how much fun they’re havin
g even though I know for a fact that Olivia always exaggerates on her posts in order to make things sound better than they are.

  Become one of those people who spends her weekends working with guide dogs for the blind or volunteering at nursing homes.

  Make an attempt to make more friends rather than spending all my time with Walter, because even though I’ve gotten used to the fact that he’s a very loud cruncher, I miss having girlfriends to talk about girl stuff with, other than the morning ride to school with Maya.

  Stop making lists, because they don’t really seem to help.

  That night, I ran lines with Mom and found myself surprised at how good she was. I wasn’t sure why—she had won a bunch of Emmys over the years. But something had changed. As we went through the scenes, it was as if she stood still and played a game of strip acting, slowly taking off one layer after another—humor, anger, defensiveness—until the lines blurred and I forgot that I was watching my mother and instead felt like I was seeing the X-rayed insides of this English professor who was so scared of getting hurt that she’d rather spend her time with the writings of a dead poet than with other human beings.

  A few days after her audition, I got home from school to find her waiting for me at the dining room table reading her Meditations for Women Who Think Too Much book.

  “Oh, good, you’re home,” she said, standing up. “Come on—we’re going out.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I tripped over a meditation cushion and banged my elbow on an armoire.

  “It’s a surprise,” she said, grabbing her purse.

  “Where are we going?” I asked again as we drove east on Pico Boulevard.

  “I told you. It’s a surprise.”

  When we pulled into the King Fu parking lot, I turned to her, confused. Back before she was famous, King Fu had been the place where we had gone on every special occasion—birthdays, last days of school, Christmases with the rest of the Jews, even though we weren’t Jewish. “What are we doing here?”

  “We’re having dinner!”

  I looked at the clock. “It’s four thirty.”

  “We’re having an early dinner!”

  Other than two old couples who spoke very loudly because they couldn’t hear each other, we were the only people in there.

  After we ordered (as usual, with the kung pao chicken and moo shu pork and vegetable dumplings and sweet and sour pork, we ordered way too much food. And, just the way it had been back when we used to come here, I was already worrying that the bill was going to be expensive), she smiled at me. “Bug, do you remember the last time we were here?”

  I thought about it. “I think it was . . . to celebrate your getting Plus Zero.”

  A smile spread across her face.

  “Oh, my God. YOU GOT IT?!” I screamed.

  She nodded.

  “YOU GOT THE PART???!!!”

  She nodded again.

  “IN THE MOVIE?!”

  More nodding.

  Although I was probably too old (and too heavy), I leaped out of my seat and jumped into her arms before she screamed, “Bug, honey, my back!” and I jumped down and instead lifted her up.

  “YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN THE MOVIE?! REALLY?” I screamed as I plopped her back down once I realized that all her depression eating was making my back hurt as well.

  “I AM!” she screamed back.

  After we did a little happy dance (in addition to being almost deaf, the other diners seemed to be almost blind as well, as none of them were paying us much attention), she stopped and grabbed my shoulders. “Honey, this is all because of you. If you hadn’t believed in me—” At that her lip started quivering. Usually when that happened I got super-uncomfortable, knowing she’d be starting with the crying any second, but this time I didn’t care. Probably because I had already beat her to it.

  “No, Mom—you did it,” I replied, wiping my eyes. “I helped a little, but you went in there and nailed it. You. Not me. And not a candle.”

  “I still think the candle helped,” she said.

  “Okay, fine,” I laughed. The whole thing was so surreal, I was waiting for a camera crew to jump out and tell me I was being punk’d. “So when does it shoot?”

  “July. In upstate New York,” she replied. “Bug, you’re going to love it up there. Apparently, this little town called Hudson, where we’ll be staying? Supposed to be so cute. It’s two hours north of Manhattan, right across the river from Woodstock.”

  If this had been a few months ago, I would have fought her on going because I wouldn’t have wanted to leave my friends. But seeing as I no longer had any friends, except for Walter and Maya, it sounded like it could be fun.

  It wasn’t until much later that I realized that her doing the movie meant that she’d be seeing Billy Barrett on a daily basis and pretending to be in love with him.

  And for my mother, there was a very fine line between reality and make-believe.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A few nights later Ben took us out to dinner to Ivy at The Shore to celebrate. Ever since he had started seeing Alice, we had seen less and less of him. That night, when Mom came into my room to ask me how she looked, instead of just giving a routine “Great,” without even looking, I actually took the time to check her out, and I was glad to see that she did look great. I knew it was silly because Mom’s beauty only canceled out the fact that she was nuts for a limited amount of time, and then guys usually caught on to the truth and bolted, so the fact that Ben had been in our lives for so long meant that he was either (a) incredibly stupid (which he was not) or (b) would have loved her even if she wasn’t a Most Beautiful Person. What was even sillier was the fact that I was still hoping they would hook up.

  I spent a lot of the dinner trying to get everyone to play the “Remember When” game. (Remember when we went to Martha’s Vineyard that summer and ate steamers and lobster rolls? Yeah, no, not the time Mom threw up over the side of the boat because she’d had too much sangria—the night before that. Remember when we took a road trip up to Northern California and stayed in that really pretty hotel, and Ben and I drove over to San Francisco because Mom had to stay in bed the next day after the tour of the vineyard?) But even with that, things felt weird. More polite. Like instead of its being our one thousandth dinner together, it was our first.

  In French there are two ways to say you: the formal vous, which you use for strangers and bosses and old people, and the informal tu, which is for family and close friends. That night, the tu-ness that had always been there between Ben and Mom felt like a thing of the past, and Ben’s “Sure! Of course!” when I asked if he would come to New York to visit us during the movie came off as very unsure.

  As for Mom, she didn’t seem to notice the fact that things were weird.

  She was too busy texting.

  “Who are you texting?” I asked after Ben had excused himself to go to the bathroom. “Willow?” For good or for bad, now whenever Mom got stressed out, instead of reaching for a drink or a pill, she texted her sponsor. (Good for the rest of the world, bad for Willow.)

  “No,” she replied, pecking the keyboard with one finger. (“Do you think they offer a class at the Learning Annex where adults can learn to text with both hands like you kids?” she had asked me the other day.)

  “Then who? Eldin?” Eldin was an older African American guy from Mom’s Monday night meeting who had become one of Mom’s buddies.

  I heard the ding of the response from the mysterious texter, followed by Mom’s laugh. A real laugh. From her shrinking-by-the-day-because-she-had-sworn-off-carbs-because-the-camera-adds-ten-pounds belly. “Billy,” she replied.

  “Billy Barrett?” I demanded.

  She squinted at the phone. “Tell me again what LMFAO means. I always forget.”

  Even with the text abbreviation cheat sheet I had made for her, Mom still s
truggled with that stuff.

  “Since when have you been texting Billy Barrett?” I demanded.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. A few days?”

  “About what? The movie?”

  “The movie, life, love . . . ,” she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “What does it mean, Bug?”

  “What does it mean that you’re texting some guy you don’t even know about love? A guy who, by the way, has a girlfriend.”

  “No. The LNFAO.”

  “It’s LMFAO,” I corrected.

  “Whatever. So what does it mean?”

  “Did you hear me about the girlfriend part, Mom?”

  She sighed. “I did hear you, Annabelle. And we’re not talking about love in terms of us. We’re talking about love in terms of, you know, the concept of it. Seeing that that’s what the movie is about.”

  I shook my head. I had no one to blame for this but myself.

  “So are you going to tell me what it means, or am I going to have to Goggle it?”

  “It’s Google,” I corrected.

  “Same thing. The Google will also tell me how to give someone a ringtone, right?”

  “There’s no ‘the.’”

  “What?”

  “It’s just Google. Not the Google. Or a Google. Just Google.” Was it dumb to get hung up on articles like the and a? Yes. But I needed to have control over something.

  “Fine. Google. So will it?”

  “You want to give Billy Barrett his own ringtone?!” I cried. “Mom, you don’t just give anyone a ringtone. It’s a big deal to do that!”

  “I’m thinking something by Katy Perry,” she said. “Does it cost extra when the song is really popular?”

  My forty-two-year-old mother wanted to use a Katy Perry ringtone for a guy who was sixteen years younger than she was and with whom she was having text conversations about love. I could only hope I made it to the bathroom in time before I threw up.