Sandwiched Read online

  Mother gives me The Look. You know, The Look? Head tilted to the side, one brow raised, lips pursed?

  I realize how ridiculous I sound, a forty-one-year-old woman arguing with her mother over a moldy cutting board I haven’t seen in months, maybe years. So what if her scrutiny of my life and home makes me feel fifteen again? I don’t have to act fifteen. “Okay, okay. Get rid of it,” I tell her.

  Mother’s sweet countenance returns. She steps toward the trashcan by the desk in the corner and drops the plastic board inside. “Thank you so much for making space for all my things. I can’t wait to start cooking for you and Erin, and it isn’t the same if I don’t have my own pots and pans.”

  I reach into the box, run my hand across smooth, cool glass, over peeling labels and bumpy plastic. “It’ll be great having your home-cooked meals again. Cooking’s just another of your many domestic talents I didn’t inherit.”

  With my gaze still on Mother, I pull out another item.

  Mother’s gasp is quick and sharp. The color drains from her face, then rises again, bright red now rather than pink. Her eyes blink. Rapidly.

  I glance down at my hand and immediately drop the object I’m holding. I’m no expert on vibrators, but I’m pretty sure I know a neck massager from…well…the other kind. The one on the floor at my feet is not for sore muscles, I can promise you that. Flesh-colored, it has a switch on the side that must’ve engaged when it hit the bathroom tile because the dismembered member pulses and vibrates and buzzes.

  “Um…” I can’t tear my gaze from the quivering body part, which fake or not, is quite impressive in size and energy. “Uh—”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake!” Mother’s voice is high and panicky. “How did my bread beater get packed with my bathroom things?”

  “Your bread beater?”

  The next thing I see is her hand wrapping around the thing, which is an action I would’ve been happy never to witness in this or any other lifetime. She lifts it from the floor and turns off the switch while I reluctantly peer up at her.

  My mother no longer blushes or blinks. In the space of a few seconds she has pulled herself together. She couldn’t look any more prim or proper if she stood in front of her church choir to lead a hymn. Squaring her shoulders, holding the “bread beater” in front of her chest like a baton, she meets my eyes.

  “That’s right. My bread beater. Haven’t you seen them advertised? It’s a clever new device that kneads dough, easy as you please.”

  “Well…” I clear my throat. “Isn’t that…something.” Mom turns and starts off through the bedroom. “I’ll just go find a place for it in the kitchen.”

  I watch her go, then shift my attention to the mirror and stare at the dumbfounded expression on my face. I picture Erin going after a fork and finding Mom’s newest kitchen gadget in the silverware drawer.

  First Bert, now Mother. Wouldn’t you know it? At the age of seventy-five, even she has more of a sex life than I do.

  LATER IN THE EVENING, after a trip with Mother to the grocery store, she cooks a dinner that brings back memories of all those childhood meals she mumbled about earlier. She, Erin and I actually sit at the kitchen table rather than at the coffee table in the den, my usual place to dine. We carry on a conversation instead of watching the news.

  Afterward, stuffed with savory fried chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and fresh green beans, Erin and I clear the table while Mother takes off to watch Wheel of Fortune. An apple cobbler bubbles and browns in my oven; Mother left the oven light on, and I glance at her culinary masterpiece with longing each time I pass by. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the foreign aromas of cinnamon and spice drifting through my kitchen, but I’m unusually relaxed and content as my daughter and I load the dishwasher together.

  “I’m going to rent a movie, then watch it at Suzanna’s,” Erin declares when we finish.

  “Before you leave, I want to see your concert dress.”

  “I didn’t find one. I’ll try again tomorrow or next week.”

  “Make it some time I can go with you.”

  Erin crosses her arms; her eyes shift away from mine. “It’s no big deal. Suzanna will help me.”

  Okay, I admit it; for the second time in one day I feel like an overemotional teenager. Only now, instead of butting heads with my mother, my best friend is replacing me with someone else. I can’t help it; silly or not, I’m jealous.

  “What about that book report you said was due on Monday?”

  “I’m not doing homework on a Saturday night. I’ll work on it tomorrow.”

  “Be home by eleven.” I eye her tight hip-hugging jeans, the inch of bare flesh between them and her T-shirt. Revealing so much skin is a new look for Erin. A fashion side effect of her friendship with Suzanna, I imagine. Though I don’t like the change, I’ve decided not to make a big deal of it. I counsel families with kids younger than Erin who are promiscuous, have alcohol problems and worse. If an exposed navel is the most I have to deal with, I count myself lucky. I’ll just keep an eye on her and make sure that’s as far as it goes. “Got your mace?” I ask.

  She gives me the eye-roll she spent middle school perfecting. “You know it’s on my key ring.”

  “Just make sure you keep it in your hand if you’re returning the movie and walking through the store parking lot after dark.”

  “I know, Mom.” She hugs me and laughs. “You’ve only told me a million and one times. Anyway, there’s a movie drop. I won’t even have to get out of the car.”

  “Let Maxwell in and feed him before you go.”

  After Erin leaves and Wheel of Fortune ends, Mother and I watch CNN together while eating ice-cream-smothered pie. Maxwell peers at us with pleading eyes. He sits in front of the sofa, whining quietly each time I lift my spoon. Mother gives me The Look again when I place my bowl on the floor to let him lick it. I laugh at her and proceed to fold a couple of loads of laundry.

  I’m placing a stack of clean underwear on Erin’s dresser when I see the novel on her bedside table. I figure it must be the assigned book for her report since I’ve never known my daughter to read a novel unless it’s required. I hope she’s not getting sidetracked by her newfound social life and putting off the report until the last minute. But I remind myself that, though she’s spending more time with friends these days, it’s still not in Erin’s nature to procrastinate. She’s a typical only child. Fairly responsible as teenagers go.

  I walk over, pick up the paperback, read the title. Penelope’s Passion. A hazy cover creates the effect of looking through steam at a woman’s naked back. A man’s hand lifts the damp, curling tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck. I have my doubts Erin’s English teacher chose this particular read.

  Settling at the edge of my daughter’s bed, I open the book to a random page.

  Penelope sensed rather than heard the captain’s approach. Pulling the sheet to her breast, she watched the door…and waited. Her heart fluttered like hummingbird wings, her stomach felt as unsteady as the ship, tossed and swayed by the turbulent sea.

  Flickering candlelight painted shadows on the walls. For only a moment, Penelope glanced away to watch them dance, and when she looked back, he stood there…filling the doorway…his dark eyes devouring her, looking more a pirate than captain of a ship. His unbuttoned shirt revealed a powerful expanse of muscled chest. The sight of it made Penelope aware of her own chest, bare beneath the bed sheet. Her only garment had mysteriously disappeared while she bathed, so she’d had no choice but to retire naked.

  Penelope lifted her chin. “Do you intend to rape me, Sir?”

  The captain pulled off his shirt as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “Since you now share my name, I intend to consummate our marriage.”

  She kept her gaze on his face, too nervous to glance lower at his body, afraid if she did he might see the excitement in her eyes when she looked up again. “And if I refuse you, Captain?”

  He chuckled, his smile qu
ick and heart-stopping. Then he reached for the buckle on his belt and moved closer to the bed.

  Penelope could no longer refrain. She glanced at his broad chest, then lower still, down his flat, muscle-corded belly to the thin line of dark hair that trailed to the top of his breeches. Her breath caught, her stomach tightened involuntarily and a warm, sweet ache spread like heated honey through her limbs. To her shame, she yearned to touch him, yearned for him to touch her in all the places no man ever had, or should.

  “Dear Lady,” he said, his voice a deep, arousing caress, “you won’t refuse me.”

  “Well, hell,” I mutter, closing the book. Penelope isn’t the only one with a warm, sweet ache.

  First Bert, then Mother, now Erin.

  Maybe the person who came up with the old saying, “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” knew what he or she was talking about.

  Tucking Penelope’s Passion beneath my arm, I leave Erin’s room. At the end of the hallway, I poke my head around the corner into the den where Mother sits knitting and watching TV, with Maxwell snoring on the rug at her feet. The knitting needles click out a rhythmic beat.

  “I think I’ll turn in early and catch up on some reading.” Mother’s needles pause. The clicking stops. She looks up at me. “I hope for once you’re reading for pleasure instead of for work.”

  The corner of my mouth spasms as I think of Penelope’s captain. “Purely for pleasure tonight, Mother. You have my word.”

  CHAPTER 2

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Date: 11/1 Saturday

  Subject: Tonight

  Hey. Meet me at the mall at 11:30. We’ll eat, then shop for something to wear out tonight to The Beat. You’re going. No excuses.

  I look at the outfit spread across Suzanna’s bed and wish I’d never checked my e-mail this morning. The skintight, one-sleeved red-and-black striped top will leave one shoulder completely bare, while the pleated black pinstriped miniskirt is barely long enough to cover my scrawny butt. But the worst of it all sits in an open box; a pair of ankle-high, pointy-toed red boots with buckles on the sides and short spiked heels.

  This afternoon at the mall, I gave into Suzanna’s arm-twisting and bought it all. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The outfit was great for laughs in the dressing room. But the thought of actually wearing it in public makes me want to puke up Nana’s fried chicken.

  My stuff has been in the trunk of my car since I left the mall. It’s bad enough having Mom to deal with, but now I have Nana, too. It’s not like I don’t want her to live with us; I do. But I’m afraid if the two of them saw these clothes, Mom would go ballistic and Nana might have a heart attack. And two against one makes it that much harder to defend yourself. I’m sure Mom didn’t have this sort of outfit in mind for my concert. Which, now that I think of it, I totally forgot to shop for. The concert, that is.

  “This all goes back,” I say, shaking my head and turning to face my friend. “It’s not me at all. It’s more like something you’d wear.”

  Suz grabs the top and holds it up in front of me. “Oh, get over it. You’re just nervous. You’re gonna look amazing.”

  “I’ll feel like a skank.”

  “Are you saying I dress like a skank?”

  “No. I’m saying that you can pull off wearing slutty things without looking skanky. I can’t.”

  Suzanna tosses the satiny top in my face. “That’s just stupid.”

  I catch the shirt and start to refold it. “It doesn’t matter what I wear tonight. If I’m with you no guy’s going to notice me anyway.” Not that they pay me much attention when Suz isn’t around. It’s just worse when she is.

  “That’s only because you’re so quiet. They probably think you don’t want to hook up.”

  “Okay.” I sit at the edge of her bed, wishing she’d turn off the rap music, which I hate. “Then explain why it is that guys who’ve never met me, guys who don’t know I’m quiet or that you’re outgoing, completely look past me whenever you and I are together? Even before we ever open our mouths?”

  Suz rolls her eyes. “As if.”

  “It’s true.”

  “If it is true, which it isn’t, then maybe it’s because…” She pauses to nibble her lower lip. “Well, I hate to say this, but maybe it’s because you dress like an orchestra member.”

  “I am an orchestra member.”

  “Exactly.” Suzanna flips back her long blond hair.

  “Playing the cello doesn’t have anything to do with the way I dress. Lot’s of girls who aren’t in orchestra dress like me.”

  “They probably can’t hook up, either.”

  “What’s wrong with my clothes?” I glance down at my jeans and T-shirt, bought last week, though they aren’t my style. “I’m showing skin.” I point at my belly button. “See?”

  Suz eyes my jeans. “At least they aren’t your usual. Baggy, khaki or black.”

  “Samantha Carter dresses like a nun and she has boyfriends. My clothes aren’t the problem.”

  “Then what?”

  I lay the folded skank-top on the bed beside me, cross my arms and stare straight at her chest. “Remember yesterday after school when you ran up to me in the parking lot while I was talking to Todd Blackburn about our science project?”

  She nods. “What about it?”

  “When he saw you coming, he forgot I existed. At first I thought it was your bouncing ponytail that threw him into a trance. Then I realized your hair wasn’t the only thing bouncing.”

  Her eyes widen. “Shut up! I wasn’t bouncing!”

  “Yes you were! And Todd wasn’t the only guy in the parking lot who noticed. Instead of ‘follow the bouncing ball,’ it was ‘follow the bouncing boobs.’”

  “That’s disgusting.” Suzanna’s face flushes, which is a total surprise since nothing much embarrasses her.

  “Well, if that’s the problem,” she says, “I can solve it.”

  “If you tell me to stand up straight and stick out my personality, I’m out of here.” Back before Nana quit sewing, she’d say that to me. She’d be fitting a dress or whatever, pinning it at my shoulders or under my pits and getting all bent out of shape because I was slumping.

  Suz makes a face and starts for the door. “Wait here.”

  While she’s gone I turn off the music and swipe a piece of mint gum from her dresser. I think how weird it is that two people so different wound up friends. I moved to Dallas as a sophomore two years ago when Dad expanded his business. Since then, I’ve been pretty much alone when it comes to a social life. I hate my school with all its little groupies. Until Suz transferred in at the beginning of the year, I didn’t have a best friend. The truth is, I didn’t have any close friends at all. Just kids I hung out with sometimes. Other girls from my orchestra class, usually. Most of them quiet, goody-two-shoes nobodies. Which is probably how people think of me, too. I didn’t share secrets with anyone or talk on the phone ’til late at night. I never laughed so hard I peed my pants. Mainly, I studied a lot, practiced my cello, made the honor roll and spent time with Mom.

  Then Suzanna showed up and everything changed. She lives nearby in a Dallas suburb. Suz isn’t exactly honor roll material, but she knows how to have fun. She should’ve graduated last year, but she didn’t pass a couple of classes. Instead of retaking the first semester of her senior year at her old school and being totally humiliated, her parents let her transfer. I still can’t figure out why she chose to hang out with me. At her old school, she was a cheerleader with more friends than she could keep track of. She says they’ve all taken off to different colleges. I’m pretty sure some of them made her feel stupid for not graduating, though she’s never come out and said it.

  Some friends.

  I think she realized that. Or maybe she’s just had enough of the whole “high school popularity” thing. Whatever the reason, she latched on to me the second she heard me playing cello in an empty classroom one day a
fter school, and she’s never let go. Okay, so sometimes I feel like her ugly stepsister. But at least I have fun now that I’m not hanging with Mom 24/7.

  I’m dabbing some of Suz’s spicy perfume on my neck when she walks back into the room and hands me two pale pink oval blobs. “What are these? Dead jellyfish?”

  “Silicone inserts,” she says. “They’re Katie’s. She takes after Dad. I take after Mom.”

  Katie, Suzanna’s fifteen-year-old sister, is so flat she’s almost concave. “She actually wears these?” I press the blobs against my 32-A’s. The inserts even have nipples. Hard ones.

  “Sometimes she does.”

  “Well, I can’t,” I say. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s false advertising for one thing. For another,” I pinch the nipples, “I’d look like I’m chronically cold.”

  Suz snickers.

  “Besides, if a guy’s only interested in me because he thinks I have big boobs then maybe he’s not worth knowing.”

  She sits beside me. “Let me explain guys to you. They can’t help it. They’re drawn to ta-tas like flies are drawn to picnic tables. It’s the way they’re wired.”

  I lay the blobs on the bed beside the red boots. “In that case, I have no hope.”

  “Not true. You just have to trick them into noticing you so that they’ll stick around long enough to get to know you better. Once they do, and they realize how funny and smart you are, your booblessness won’t matter so much.”

  I stare at her. “Yeah, right.”

  Suz sighs. “Okay, maybe not. I’ve never met a guy our age that mature.”

  I think of Dad. Mom doesn’t know I figured out about him and the sleazoid who lives next door. But I’m not stupid. I saw how his eyelids got all heavy-looking whenever he saw her out in the driveway wearing only a little bikini top with her short shorts. I heard how his voice changed whenever they spoke, how his deep drawl got deeper and more drawn out, like the words were coated with molasses. “I’m not sure they’re ever that mature,” I say to Suzanna. “Even the old ones.”