“What are you doing now, Mom?” I groan, just wanting to have that bath I’ve been dreaming of and get to bed already.
Lucky for us the huge room has two double beds, so there’s some space between mom and me.
But if she keeps acting crazy like this, I don’t know how much more I can stand.
I couldn’t eat half of what was put in front of me for dinner, and not seeing Mack since we got here has left me wondering if I can actually spend two days and three nights with this lunatic who’s calling herself my mother.
I mean, I knew she was a bit annoying sometimes, but this weekend’s showing me a different side of her so far.
“I’m calling that housekeeper who seems to run the place is what I’m doing,” Mom grumbles, wincing when her finger tries to dial the old-style phone with her broken nail.
“I mean…it’s like a fucking furnace in here. This whole house is way too warm!” she almost shrieks. “Look at your own face, Tina,” she says forcefully, making me self-conscious of something I’m well aware of. “You’ve been red as a beet since we got dropped off by that…that ranch hand cowboy fella,” she spits.
Letting me know loud and clear she’s got no interest in him. But just mentioning Mack is enough to make me miss him a hundred times over again.
I can’t help but get defensive. And even though Mack doesn’t need me to stick up for him, I can’t help but feel angry with mom for even talking about him like that.
She lets her words have their desired effect as she holds the receiver in a limp hand, and the other has her fingers curved into her palm as she studies her broken nail.
“Why don’t you ask that guy you were making a fool of yourself with at dinner to come and fix it?” I reply hotly.
Hoping it hurts her to hear that as much as it hurts me to hear her saying anything negative about Mack.
But mom’s too thick-skinned to get upset by my remark.
There are only three of us here for the weekend, with a guy around mom’s age called Ben making up the numbers.
I thought mom was just chewing his ear off over dinner because there was no one else to talk to. But it was pretty clear that she might have more in mind than just Ben fixing her stuck window.
If anything, my snide remark has given her a better idea, but whomever she’s trying to call on the phone picks up. And even I can hear the unmistakable, shrill voice of old Mrs. Corbett on the decayed line from across the room.
I notice mom’s attitude shrinks whenever she’s dealing with the aged housekeeper.
Mrs. Corbett must be pushing eighty or ninety, but there’s no way she’d put up with any of my mom’s nonsense. Ranch guest or not.
And I think they both quietly know it.
Mom hangs up the phone after explaining things in her own special way and seems a little happier, letting me know that it’ll be fixed in a jiffy.
“See, Tina? Sometimes you’ve just got to tell people, not ask,” she says boastfully.
But I’m sure it’ll get done when someone feels like it, not because my mom’s saying she wants it done.
I mutter something about her being impossible, and slotting my earbuds in, I let myself fall back onto my own bed.
Determined to ignore mom until she’s got off the high horse she’s been riding all day.
I got to say it again. As lucky as mom is with all her contests and coupons, she’s lousy at being a satisfied customer.
She’s always got to find something to bitch and nag about, which makes her a sore winner. And that’s just weird.
I try to block her out as I listen to some music, but she’s pacing and carrying on more than ever after twenty minutes pass before she stands over me.
Her mouth moving, but it doesn’t match the song I’m playing, which almost makes me giggle because of how crazy she looks.
“…I said I’m going to go find Ben. He’ll fix the window,” Mom announces when I unplug one ear to hear her, but I only shrug after pressing it back in.
I’m glad when she does leave the room. And almost secretly hoping that this Ben guy doesn’t mind being bothered by my mom.
Although, he didn’t seem to mind talking to her at length over dinner. They both seemed pretty into what the other was saying, but I didn’t pay that much attention.
Maybe there’s romance in the cards this weekend, after all.
Pity it’s not my turn, though, but I’m kind of used to that.
Even though I’ve never even known my mom to have coffee with a guy, let alone go on a proper date. It’s the no-fly zone in our own relationship, I guess. Neither of us mentioning how sad and pathetically unattached each of us are.