Drama Queen - short story

Drama Queen

As I turn onto Oak Street I breathe a sigh of relief. No car other than Jeff's classic Mustang. My mother has a talent for arriving early, and then becoming the martyr who "isn't important enough for you to be home to greet."  Drama Queen.

I teach poetry at PSU. Several stragglers wanted me to look at their work...occupational hazard. Jeff hadn't answered the phone earlier so I couldn't find out if she had called. She has never met Jeff, my fiancée, but he has charmed her over the long-distance line. It's silly to hang on to hope that she would finally approve of the man in my life.

My mother makes "Mommy Dearest" look like Mother Teresa. She is a tiny island of evil. She deserted my brother and me when I was eight-years-old and Richard was just four. Now some bizarre alchemy led her to find me...and we began the waltz of memories. She comes down from Camano Island a couple of times a year and stays with me. She stays. Stays until I pray to hear the trunk lid of her car go up in acceptance of her suitcase.

Stranger yet...why does she come? She never once said a kind word to me, and I have no idea what it feels like to love or be loved by a mother like my friends,  who cherish theirs. We don’t hear from her in many years. No birthday cards or Christmas gifts...just a hollow vacuum.

Then one day there she was, waiting in front of the duplex where I was living with my now ex-fiancée, Greg. It took a long time for me to realize it was her. She slid out of her Buick-boat, looking like a child. At 4'11" she never weighed more than 100 pounds - even in pregnancy. Looking at her I wondered why she had once seemed such a looming and frightening specter. Nothing was mentioned about why she was showing up now.

Greg was in the backyard digging in the garden when I took my mother back there. Stunned by her appearance Greg stammered, probably recalling what I had told him about my childhood. I am sure he had pictured my mother as a Brunhilda type. Greg offered her a grimy hand. "Glad to meet you Mrs...sorry, I can't remember your last name." She simpered, "Lardner, Babe Lardner.". 

Greg's face reddened and he looked at me with his bewildered look. Then, bless his heart, he interrupted and began to make small talk. I couldn't tell Greg my mother's last name - because I didn't know her last name. All I had ever heard through the family grapevine was that she had married a cabinetmaker in Seattle.

Mother sidled up to Greg, vamping and taking his arm. "You just call me Babe. Everyone does. It's so nice to know there is a strong man around...you do live here?" 

Greg took a deep breath and finally said, "Well, there isn't much to handle in your case...I mean - you're so tiny...." He had just opened the door to what became her favorite game.

"Can you believe someone as delicate as me could give birth to such a moose?" Greg turned his head and I mimed antlers. Inside it hurts like boiling flames. I had my mother's small bones, but they were upholstered in lots of ample flesh. Following behind them I felt like a moose...the loser my mother had prophesied when I was eight.

I can remember the one time when Greg and I went to visit at her Camano Island home. Hoping to ease some of the hours, we took her lunch at Ivar's, a cozy little place. The line was already long when Greg went to sign us up. The nanosecond he was gone my mother crooked her finger to motion me closer. I bent over so she could speak in my ear. "Where on God's green earth did you find that? Indicating Greg. Too stunned to answer I stood stiffly until “that” came back and joined us in line.

Ahead of us in line were folks from several tour buses. Most of the people were Japanese and were draped in the inevitable cameras. Out of a dead silence, my mother said, "Look at `em. They got some guts comin' here on Pearl Harbor Day. Damn cameras draped all over.". 

I snapped, "Mother when Greg and I were in Europe we saw hundreds of tourist "draped" in cameras...And hardly any of them were Japanese. Most were Americans in plaid shorts. And by the way, this is not Pearl Harbor Day. It's on December 7th."

Undaunted, as if she were really convinced none of the Japanese spoke English, my mother ranted. "Good Americans went down when them Tojos sideswiped us." I didn't argue with her anymore...afraid of worsening the situation. I feel guilty about not speaking up and I wish I could apologize to those people for my mother's inexcusable behavior.

Greg left me shortly after that. No fight or disagreement, he just packed and left. He never said so, but the poor guy probably thought he had enough challenges with my neurotic insecurities without taking on the Psycho-Bigot. Now... my mother was coming to meet Jeff.

I pulled my Subaru in behind Jeff's car and bolted into the house like a dervish, picking up anything that looked like it could be construed as `mess'. Jeff came out of the kitchen behind me and tried to center me for a kiss. "House looks fine, babe." Maybe it looked fine to him, but I was not willing to risk one of her snarling lip curls.

The bell rings and I open the door, see her clutching her chest and breathing heavily as she says, "Why didn't Jeff come out to help me? Maybe he's not quite as perfect as you think." 

I sigh, "Come in Mother, Jeff will bring in your suitcases." With a lip-curl, "Hmmph, guess he isn't so glad to see me come." I reassured her that Jeff was waiting to meet her. That he just wanted us to have a few minutes together. My inner voice was, however, screaming "Yes, go home!" 

"Don't you ever dust this place?" I reassured her that I dust daily ( in a pig's eye). But she has newly found (or imagined) allergies and a "thingee in my breathers", which I took to mean her lungs. We chit-chat for what seems like hours before I ask her if she's ready to go to the den. She struggles to pull herself up, then hunched over, palm on hip she lets me know this safari to the den was more than she could take.

Jeff was still in his wing-back chair, curls of smoke-wreathed around his head, like Mt. Hiroshima bedecked in clouds. Jeff's back was toward us and my mother gave another lip-curl for my audacity to allow smoke in any place where delicate-lunged people fight to survive.

Jeff rose and turned to us as I said, "Mother, this Jeff...my fiancée. He's a marine biologist."   Silence...

"He...he...he's a...she stuttered as I jumped in.

"Yes, Mother, he's a marine biologist."

Gaping, she said, "He's..." 

I softly stated, "Yes, he's a wonderful man and my best friend. That's who he is, Mother."

Little sparkles of glee shone in Jeff's eyes as I introduced them. "Mother, this is Jeff Yamamoto. Jeff, this is my mother." 

The woman grabbed her chest and swayed drunkenly. Jeff put out his hand to steady her and she drew back as if he had tried to hand her a pile of manure. "My God, Julie, does he speak English?" 

Jeff never said a word, but I answered in my coldest voice, "He speaks four languages fluently. One of them being his ancestral Japanese."

Jeff is so in tune with himself that my mother's bitchy bigotry only amused him. But it sliced me wide open. My mouth again kicked into gear. "Jeff is American-born Japanese. His parents met in an internment camp. You must remember those, Mother."

"We...we had to. They coulda come and slit our throats while we were in our beds." 

Fury surged through me. "Mother, Jeff's father owns one of the largest truck gardens in the world." Bless Jeff, he tried to lighten the moment.

"Mrs. Lardner, the only thing my father could have done to anyone is overcharge on the lettuce. We are second generation. We own much land."

“Government gives you foreigners welfare and special treatment while some good white American gets the shaft. It isn't right you know. Nope, you ought to go back to where you came from."

Jeff answered bemusedly, "Mrs. Larder I come from Fresno."

Always I had kept quiet. No matter what filth and prejudice she ignorantly ranted, I kept quiet. Now I owed decency to Jeff and the others splashed by her venom. 

"Mother, Jeff is a hard-working man...like his father and grandfather. This is our home and I won't allow you to say such hateful things. Jeff's mother worked the fields and raised three children. My mother bolted. Now if you want to stay here, it all ends right now."

She stammered and flung her arms. "Mother, don't. I mean it. If you say one more word I will escort you to the car and wave goodbye as you leave. Do you want Jeff to bring in your suitcase?" 

Silence again, and then a snotty, "Guess he should be able to carry it.

We spent a murderous evening sitting woodenly in the living room. Jeff tried to engage my mother in conversation, only to be icily ignored. I tried to build some bridges, but they were all swept away by the raging force of my mother's ignorance.

We all went to bed and Jeff held me through the night, murmuring reassurances. I tried to apologize to him with hugs and kisses. Neither of us slept a wink.

In the morning we went down to the room where my mother was to be sleeping, only to find the bed neatly made and all signs of her gone. I ran to the window and saw that her car was gone and she had left a note for me on my Austrian lace curtains...with a huge safety pin. It read, "I'm ashamed to have you as any daughter of mine. Fat slob wallowing around with that yellow-skin piece of trash. You never did have good sense, but this makes me sick to my stomach. I couldn't rest easy knowing some farmer was slobbering all over my daughter. I have my values to live by." No signature, just a lined piece of yellow tablet paper. 

She must have sneaked out. Neither Jeff nor I heard a sound.

That's a lie, I did hear clicks and shuffles, but I didn't tell Jeff. I wanted her gone! She was never going to be around the child that nestled under my heart...that mound she thought was fat. My baby would never be called a name. Patting my stomach I marveled that the influence of my bigoted parents never sewed prejudice in me. I made it a point to stick up for anyone my parents hated...as they hated me.

I pray my child will never know bigotry. I know he...or she might. I will clothe my child with self-esteem and tolerance. I will build a wall around all those hateful notions never letting them destroy innocence again.

end