Spooning (2 page)

“Mom, you know what I meant. Please stop crying.”

“It's just …” she sputtered. She couldn't even get the words out.

“What, Mom?”

“You're just going to be so far away!” she cried. She had reverted to her “my baby's gone” routine. I'd been hearing this one since I first left for summer camp.

“Mom, it won't be so bad, I promise. How about this—why don't you take the train into the city next Saturday and meet me for a girls' lunch?” She actually stopped sobbing and cracked a minuscule smile. And there you had it ladies and gentlemen, the moment we'd all been waiting for.

“Oh, Charlie, I would love it. Are you sure?” Like I was going to say,
um, no I'm not quite sure, but my people will call your people and we'll figure something out.

“Totally.” I gave her my best smile. “I would love it.”

Now I should stop here and say something in my mom's defense. She's the most hardworking, most dynamic, most selfless, intelligent woman I know. Today was just one of those traumatic moments for a parent. Saying good-bye to a child is a tough thing to do. The same thing had happened when they'd dropped me off at my dorm freshman year. Mom was a little emotional, as usual. Hugging and crying, crying and hugging. Fighting to be strong, even though she really wasn't. She was standing there sort of lifeless in the middle of my dorm room, lining the bottom of my underwear drawer with that smelly Laura Ashley paper. She loves doing that kind of stuff. Whether it is folding my socks in perfect little balls or making sure my panties and bras were color coordinated, she does things like this because they make her feel that I'm going to be all right, or at least well-organized.

I glanced over at my mother, who was smoothing a lacey bureau scarf across my dresser. She was muttering something about the insurmountable dust bunnies just as a NYC bus roared by sending a whiff of exhaust through my wide-open window.

“Okay Charlie, I think that's it.” My dad, ever the voice of reason, emerged from the bathroom. In his hand he carried the toilet brush. Was our plumbing all set? Was his plumbing all set?

Suddenly, I felt myself turning into that little fourteen- year-old Charlie girl who'd been dropped off at soccer camp for the first time and spent her days feeling homesick and waiting
for mail—that is, until she'd met Kent Schindele and had her first-ever summer romance.

“Don't go!” I wanted to scream. But then I remembered, I am an adult.

“Yeah, Dad, I think that does it.” I gave him a false yet beaming grin. And with that, they were heading to the door. “So Mom, I'll give you a shout tomorrow about our girls' date. Cool?”

“Yes sweetie, I can't wait to hear from you.” And there you had it. A few more kisses, a couple of bucks from my dad, and they were scurrying down the five flights of stairs.

A
s if on cue, I could hear the soulful words of Mr. James Brown come blaring out from Syd's room. “Get up, get on up, get up, get on up …”

“So are they gone, Charlie-poo?” Sydney appeared sporting a wife beater, paint all over her face and a cigarette hanging off her lip. She was painting her room an unattractive shade of green. She'd been thinking of the green that you find in celebrities' hallways or kitchens, but she was getting the mossy color found in mental wards.

“Yes, I'd thought they'd never leave,” I sighed. “Can I get one of those?” I reached out for a Marlboro Light and Sydney whipped out her hot pink lighter.

“I haven't touched a cigarette since graduation,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?” Tara appeared in her bathrobe and went into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. “That's a long time to wait for some stick. You must almost be a born-again virg,” she tossed out with a grin as she disappeared back into her room.

“Whatever,” I sang. “I think you've had too much stick. You probably wouldn't know a good one even if it was in the palm of your little hand.”

“Ha, ha! Very funny, Charlie,” she called from her room. Before I could even take a drag though …
ring-ring
. I picked up the phone. A voice on the other end said, “I had a thought.”

“Hey Mom, what's up?” I tried to sound as if I hadn't just talked to her in person about ten minutes ago.

“Well, you are in such a cultured mecca, I was thinking that you could probably find a cooking class somewhere in the city,” she said.

“Cooking class?”

“Yes, there must be so many there.”

“Mom, I can't cook. Why would I want to take a cooking class?” You could hear the annoyance building up in my voice.

“Precisely my point! You need to
learn
how to cook.”

“Why?” I asked. “After all, I did just master boiling water!” This was a family joke. When I was thirteen, I'd been babysitting and had to make some mac and cheese for my charges. Due to my lack of cooking skills, I'd had to call my father to ask how to begin the process—that is, how to boil water. Needless to say, it had been hard to live that one down.

“But Mom, really, cooking is pure torture for me. I ruin everything. Everything!” I reminded her.

“Right, so you need to learn how to cook. How will you make sure you're eating properly otherwise? Now, I think you should find a class that focuses on the basics. You know cutting, slicing, dethawing—”

“Mom! I do know how to slice.”

“Not frozen pizza, honey. I'm talking about being able
to make a decent dinner. Someday you may have a family to cook for.”

“Wait, oh so I see. So this all goes back to the boyfriend issue.” I heard my mother draw in her breath to begin making her case.

“No, no need, Mom. I see. You are worried that I will never get a boyfriend because I can't cook, thereby never having a boyfriend who will turn into a wonderful husband, thereby never procreating to give you several adorable grandchildren to spoil. Mom, we are in a new millennium! I have very talented digits that can flip open a cell phone to dial for takeout. It's one of the beauties of life in New York. Did you know that you can have McDonald's delivered here?”

“You can what? McDonald's? Don't the French fries get cold?”

“No, Mom, the fries are just fine. But back to my point— there are other ways to get a guy than by cooking him five-star meals. I have a well-manicured brain. Your four-year investment will pay off. Don't worry.”

At times I swore that both of my parents had hidden agendas for my college years beyond my intellectual growth and fulfillment. My father saw it as a way for me to get a good job in order to help supplement their upcoming retirement. My mother saw it as a way to meet and marry an intelligent boy whose well-paying job would help supplement his in-laws' upcoming retirement.

“Anyway, I think you should consider it,” Mom said. “I'll even pay for the classes.”

I wasn't sure what to say. On the one hand, this was Mom's way of reaching out. On the other, I could tell that she
thought of this charity as yet another financial investment for their future. “You are in a great city with ample opportunity to learn new skills,” she went on, “And all I'm saying is that these new skills might … might attract a special friend.”

“Come on, Mom,” I said. “How old-fashioned can you be? Besides, you're no Julia Child. Remember—you used to hire babysitters just to make cookies with us.”

“I'll admit my shortcomings,” she retorted. “But I married your father because he loved hamburgers, and I am the queen of the backyard barbeque. I wish I knew more about cooking to this day, but you are young and have plenty of time to improve yourself. There are so many more opportunities for girls of your generation. And plain old hamburger men like your father are so hard to find nowadays.”

“Okay, Mom!” Enough! Obviously she believed in the old adage, The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

“I'll look into cooking lessons,” I agreed. Who knows, maybe I'd get beyond the water-boiling stage. And maybe I'd even be able to gather enough cooking skills to whip up the recipe for the perfect man.

W
hy was my mom more caught up in my love life than I was? Jesus. But deep down I wondered if she had a point. I now lived in a city where, I'd been told, your best friend was either a cab driver on a cold winter night or the local Chinese food delivery boy who put extra duck sauce in your bag because he knew you loved it. Couldn't kung po chicken be just as convincing to a man's heart as a homemade pot roast with garlic mashed potatoes? This was a question for the girls. They would
set me straight. Cooking Classes vs. Delivery Boy? It was a straight-up question. The answer was either one or the other. Then again, there had to be some way to combine the two.

“Hey!” I called out from the middle of our empty living room.

“Who was that on the phone?” Tara shouted from the other side of the apartment.

“My mom just called—”

“Oh God, separation anxiety. It's the worst,” Syd lamented.

“I just got a ‘You're going to be single for the rest of your life’ lecture.”

“That woman is going to drive us all mad,” Tara moaned. “But,” she acquiesced, “I do love her!”

“You know she's right, C.” Macie, my third roommate, appeared on the doorjamb wearing full workout gear and holding a glass of OJ.

“Mace, where did you just come from?” I said observing her spandex and sweaty ponytail.

“Oh, I went for a jog in the park and just did some abs and now I'm gonna hit the showers,” she said.

Meet Macie, the queen of organization. The queen of time management. Always striving to be the best and look the best. She was absolutely perfect. Perfect, but in the sense that you couldn't hate her. Think petite, think perfectly put together. Voilà, Macie. She was our motivator. I often suspected that my mother wished that Macie was her child. Every time they saw one another, it was like I didn't exist.

“Oh Macie, you look so wonderful!” my mother would coo.

“Why hello, Mrs. Brown. You're looking just as marvelous as ever. Playing tons of tennis I can tell.” Their encounters usually made me want to puke. Throughout college, Macie
was the one who never melted a hotpot or mistakenly bleached her laundry. She went to all her classes during school, took perfect notes, and even put those little tabs in her notebooks to categorize the notes by subject matter and date. Around finals time, we would all swarm around her like bees on honey, just to get a quick glimpse of them. Not surprisingly, she made straight A's and, more important, now already had a job here in the city (we'll get to my situation later). She was Super Woman reincarnated—she could even pull off the slutty panty-slash-gold-belt ensemble, if she was into that kind of thing (it was more Tara's territory). But beyond her “Perfect Woman” stigma, Macie was our protector and our voice of reason. When in doubt, you always asked Macie and she'd give you the straight-up answer from her heart.

“You're the Energizer bunny,” I said. “I didn't even know you were gone.”

“So what's the problem with your dear sweet mother? God, I love that woman,” she replied.

“My mom thinks that I ought to take cooking classes. She thinks that it will get me a man,” I said.

“She's right,” Macie said. “No man wants a girl who can't cook. It's simple fact. No cook, no guy. End of story.”

“What? You think so? I mean, she does have a point, but you think that's still really important nowadays? The whole idea just sounds so 1950s-ish,” I grumbled. From afar, I could hear Syd singing the Flintstone's theme song. I wasn't about to face the reality that I needed to go domestic on my first day in New York City alone. This was a conversation to have with all the girls and a little liquid libation.

“Is everyone around tonight?”

I asked. “Yes,” all three replied in unison.

“Great! I'm going to invite the other girls over. How does that sound?” I asked. Our other old college housemates, Sage and Wade (who already scored a job as well), had also moved to New York City right after graduation.

“Sounds great.”

“Perfect.”

“Count me in!”