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2
Betty
When my eyes opened again, I was gently being shook by the flight attendant. She had blue eyes and a kind smile. For a moment, I didn't quite know where I was, and she reminded me.
“You're in Billings, ma'am. We just touched down a few minutes ago.”
“My mother?”
“She is already off the plane. She was on her phone, so I don't know where she was going.”
I thanked her for waking me up and got up slowly. The door on the plane was open, and I could already feel the cold air rushing towards me. It wasn't even October yet. Why was it so cold?
The sun seemed to be missing as well. When I walked off the plane, I was expecting to have to squint a little bit in my sunglasses, but there was no sun. I did a full three-sixty circle and did not see it anywhere. It must have been behind the dreary clouds that filled the sky. How in the world was I ever going to make it here? It didn't seem like the place that anybody would want to live. Why here?
I had a lot of questions for dad, but they weren't going to get answered. I could ask mom, although she would ask me why I was worried about any of it. She didn't think about what dad did. She just spent the money and went with it.
Mom was about ten feet away from the plane and she was still on her phone. I couldn't tell exactly who she was talking to, but it was most likely my dad. She was quite upset and when I got a little closer, I realized what it was about. There was not a car there to pick her up, and she was basically freaking out about it. I just kind of shook my head. What was I supposed to do when she was acting like this?
Finally, she came to some kind of conclusion, and got off the phone. Her face was streaked with fake tears, and she expertly fixed her face so that it looked like nothing had ever fallen from her eyes before.
Walking back over to me she smiled. “I had this whole thing planned out. We were going to take a nice limo and drive around through the city. Check things out, you know. I was going to show you the old charm of the place.”
“I don't think there's much to look at, so I wouldn’t be too bothered if that plan is derailed.”
I could see a few skyscrapers in the distance, if that's what they wanted to call it. It seemed substandard, everything did. Everything was bleak and dirty and cold. There was even snow in some places. I knew then that I didn't want to be there.
I looked around, wondering what that conclusion was that she had come up with.
“When are we going?”
“We are going to go as soon as they get here. It was just some kind of mix up. I'm sure that once we get to know people here things will go smoother. Tip big and often.”
Another life lesson wrapped into a few words, that was repeated to me over and over again. That one was actually a good one, though.
“So, what am I supposed to do here?”
“I don't know, honey. I'm sure you'll come up with something. You got that big fancy degree of yours. Why don't you put it to use?”
“You're right. That's what I should do.”
That's not exactly how I felt at all. Everything was going the wrong way. I didn't get my business degree so I could work in some yokel town in Montana. I doubt that they even knew what kind of systems I would put in place. I needed a big city, with progressive people. I didn’t think I would be able to find that where I was currently standing.
I tried to pull myself from the dark thoughts. I was going to make the best of it. I had decided to come with, and even though it was of course attached to the threat of taking away all my funds, I was just going to have to make the best of it.
That advice didn’t come from mom. That was all me, though she had inspired it.
The most complicated part of it all was actually smiling about it. She talked incessantly for the next ten minutes until the limo got there and finally, she stopped. She, of course, had to give her minutely detailed information to the driver. He looked about as lost as I did. I wanted to help him, but there really was no stopping her when she was on a roll. And my mother was on a roll.
The townof Billings was not impressive at all. I didn't see much that interested me, not as far as businesses and architecture went. The weather certainly wasn't doing anything for me either, but I started to notice a theme in the town. It was the people that made me pay attention. It wasn't the women, either. I wasn't worried about the competition, but the men. The men there, there was just something different about them. They wore jeans that molded to their legs and butt. Broad shoulders, trim waist. Completely different than what I was used to, but I have to say that it was doing something for me.
Mom must've caught me looking and she smiled. “They don't make them like they do in L.A., do they?”
I shook my head. All of a sudden, I wondered what the guys would look like with surfer shorts on.
“I see you're starting to perk up, Betty. Good. I knew you would come around. Mommy knows best.”
I smiled thinly and looked over at her. “I am just starting to see that maybe Montana has a few good things in it after all. Don’t expect much more than that.”
