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“Then let’s get pizza,” she pleaded. “You can tell me whatever it is you’re dying to share over pizza better than from downward dog.”
She did have a good point. And it did smell so dang good.
“Is it Cheryl again?” she asked.
Cheryl was my mother. Bridget had known her forever and a half and knew all the drama. I called her by first name because while she’d birthed me–we looked too much alike for there to be doubt–I’d pretty much taken care of her instead of the other way around. To have a drunk and pretty much a deadbeat for a mother, well… both parents, and growing up happened fast.
Ironic that my brother owned a bar considering what we went through.
“This week?” I clarified, then shook my head. I pushed off the sour feeling whenever Cheryl came up. “No. I covered their rent, so she’s been quiet. As far as I know she’s still cleaning rooms up at the resort so she hasn’t asked me to pay the electric bill.Yet.”
Bridge nodded in commiseration. My mother went through jobs like most people went through groceries. Getting new ones every week or so and moaning about how she struggled and suffered. As for my father? He was a oil service technician at a local lube and tire shop. He gave the bare minimum in effort and got minimum wage for it. Then again, the owners weren’t expecting much from him so he never made manager even after twenty years. I had a feeling they kept him employed because they knew he wouldn’t get hired anywhere else and had a soft spot for me and Arlo, even now that we were adults.
Dad was harmless. His goal in life was to sit in his worn recliner watching TV while working his way through a case of beer without falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. And it also meant he was useless. Pretty crappy of me to say about my own father, but facts were facts. This meant that I spent tons of time at Bridge’s house growing up and the only people at my high school and college graduations clapping for me were Arlo, Bridge, and Lindy.
The only trips my parents went on–because they had zero money–were guilt trips and took me along for the ride. That was why I was still living with a roommate instead of my own place. A chunk of my salary went to my parents which made it really hard to save for a down payment on a place of my own. I had a steady paycheck with benefits and all that, but a teacher’s income wasn’t huge.
“You need to cut her off,” she advised, just like she had for a long time. “How come she doesn’t pester your brother?”
“Because she always made it clear that he wasn’t hers.” She was his stepmother. “Because of that, she knows he won’t give her any money.” Arlo had cut the cord with them a while ago.
“Then it clearly works.”
I sighed. “I know. I know. I don’t want to talk about her. I went to the doctor today,” I said. I threw it right on out there.
She frowned, then gripped my hand. “Is there something wrong?”
“What? No. I mean, well, I don’t know. It was just an annual exam.”
“You don’t know? Like you need tests done? They found a lump?” Her eyes got bigger at the same time her voice went up a notch.
I scowled, thinking about a lump. “Jeez, Bridge, no.”
“Can you please say Jesus and God and fuck and shit like everyone else? I can’t have you talking about a tumor and saying golly gee.”
I crossed my arms over my coat. “I dropped the f-bomb the other day in class. You know six-year-olds all go home and tell their parents. No one’s come in to complain, thankfully. That happened twice last year as well and–”
“Fine. No swearing. Tell me about the gosh darn tumor.”
I opened the door and stepped into the warm entry, hit immediately by the scent of lavender and soft yoga music. It had lutes or flutes and had rain sounds, which always made me have to pee.
There was space for a bench and cubbies for shoes, then a stairwell to the second floor. The yoga studio was above the pizza place. “There is no tumor. God. Fuck. Dammit, woman, you’re crazy.”
She dropped onto the bench. “Then why don’t you know if something’s wrong?”
I took a deep breath and set my yoga bag–with my rolled-up mat sticking out the top–on the floor. “I didn’t go in because something was wrong. I went in for birth control. And I didn’t get examined because Theo was the doctor, and he doesn’t like my vagina.”
Bridget blinked at me once, then popped to her feet. She snagged my bag with one hand, my wrist with the other and pulled me back out onto the street.
I chased after her—I had no choice really since she had a death grip on me–as she pulled me into the pizza place and to a corner table. She practically pushed me into a chair, then turned. “Otis, two glasses of Chianti. No, make it a bottle.”
Then she dropped into the seat across from me and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Start talking. Theo, as in Theo James, Mav’s brother, right?”
I nodded.
“Theo saw your vagina and told you he doesn’t like it?”
Otis appeared with a bottle and two glasses. Maybe because he had a sister or because he was smart, he eyed us, then backed away carefully. Maybe he heard what Bridge just asked me and I wouldn’t blame him for his cautious retreat. It was a loaded question.
