13. Fall Down, Get Back Up
thirteen
Liz
My phone starts ringing from the countertop next to the sink where I’m washing dishes. I consider not answering, but I glance toward the screen and see that it’s my mom.
Quickly, I grab a dish towel and dry my hands, so I can answer.
“Hey, Mom,” I greet.
“Hey, sweetheart. How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s alright, I guess. How are you?”
“Eh. Same old, same old. You know me. I’m not ever doing anything exciting.”
“You could move up here and hang out with your son whenever you want,” I offer. “You know I’d pay to bring you up here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she grumbles.
Even though my mother and I lived in Michigan my whole childhood, when I moved to Miami for work, she came with me. She fell in love with it and decided never to leave.
When I moved up here to start over, I tried to convince her to come with me. I know she misses me but not enough to give up the warm weather and sunny skies of Florida.
I don’t blame her. She’s made a good life for herself there. She has a fun group of friends and a nice condo in an over-fifty community. As much as I would love to have her here, I honestly don’t expect her to uproot her life to follow me across the country…again.
She says, “If I moved up there to the rainy capital of the country, my joints would hurt so bad that I probably couldn’t even roll out of bed in the morning.”
“But in Florida, you jump out of bed, ready to greet the day?”
She laughs. “Well, not exactly. But that has less to do with my joints and more to do with the fact that I just don’t want to get out of bed.”
“It’s all that late-night Bingo you’ve been playing.” I may sound like I’m joking, but I’m not. She and her friends can get a little wild on their Bingo nights.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? We’ve been skipping the Bingo lately and playing strip Poker.”
“Mom!” I exclaim, completely shocked.
She starts laughing so hard she lets out a couple of snorts. “Oh, honey, I’m just kidding. I just wanted to see what you’d say.”
“Had me thinking I’d have to come down there and kick some old man”s ass.”
“Oh, no. You don”t have to do that.”
My dad died before I was born, and my mom has never shown any interest in dating ever since. I’m convinced that he turned her off to the idea of it altogether.
Wanting to change the subject, she asks, “So, how are you doing? Is the shop doing alright?”
“The shop is good. Been keeping pretty busy. And I’m fine. Just working a lot.”
“You work too much,” she says. “You need to have some fun.”
“You know I like working, Mom. It helps to keep my mind busy.”
She sighs. “I know. But I’m your mother. It’s my job to worry about you.”
“I know. I know.”
She’s suspiciously quiet for a minute, and I can tell that she’s got something she wants to say but isn’t sure if she should.
“What’s up, Mom? I can tell something is wrong.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Clearly, it’s something. Spit it out.”
“Another tabloid article came out about you today. It just frustrates me that you worked so hard to get away from here and start over and people still feel the need to run their mouths.”
“Mom, you need to stop reading that garbage. You know none of it is true.”
“I know that,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that I like seeing it pop up on my phone.”
“Why are you going looking for it?”
“I’m not. I still have a Google alert set for when your name pops up. I set it back in the day, and now, I can’t figure out how to make it stop.”
“Alright, I’ll send you a link in a little while that will show you how to turn it off.”
“Thanks, dear.”
As much as I don’t give a shit what the tabloids say about me, it bothers my mom to see anything negative about her son. Of course, it does. If it were my kid, I’d be pissed too.
“What did they say?” I ask, sensing that she wants to talk about it.
“It was an article about Staci--that model you dated. I guess she’s dating someone new, and they were spotted on a big yacht or something. But then, it goes on to talk about your relationship with her. It said after your fall from grace, that she moved on to bigger and better things.”
“Well, that sounds like it was an article more about Staci than about me, Mom,” I tell her.
“I agree with you…until the part where it questions where you went after you left Florida. It suggests that maybe you’re hooked on drugs and in rehab. Or maybe you and Staci had a big blow-up. She made an accusation that you two had a big fight, and things got physical.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. The tabloids were always in my business, printing stories without any regard for whether or not they were actually true. I was always just able to shrug them off because I knew they weren’t. Even though my mom knows the same, she has a hard time letting it go.
“Just try to ignore it,” I plead. “It will eventually stop. The world will eventually forget me, and they’ll move on to something else to talk about.”
I say the words, and I pray they are true. But it’s already been a couple of years, and they still feel the need to talk shit.
Now, it’s my turn to change the subject. I start asking about some of her friends and what she’s been doing around town. It seems to cheer her up some.
My phone vibrates with a text, but I choose not to look at it while I’m on the phone. I already feel bad that I don’t see my mom as often as I should, so I’ll try to talk to her whenever I can without rushing it. I don’t care what I’m doing. Everything else can wait.
The woman gave up her life to raise me and let me follow my dreams. I think the least I can do is give her some uninterrupted phone time.
When we finally do hang up the phone, I pull up the text. It’s from Jana.
Jana: Hey, I have a huge favor to ask.
Instead of texting, I decide to just give her a call.
When she answers, I ask, “What’s going on, Jana?”
I figure it’s probably about her car. That’s what most people in this town call me for.
“Well, Jack, I’m in a little bit of a pickle.” She takes a deep breath. “Tomorrow, before school, Tali has a breakfast with parents thing. I told her I would go, but my dumb self scheduled an order of 500 cupcakes to be done by noon. I just can’t swing both. I told her I couldn’t make it, and she asked if maybe you could go with her. It shouldn’t take long. Maybe like twenty minutes to half an hour. If you can’t do it, it’s fine, but I thought I’d ask—”
I cut her off. “Of course, I can take her.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to put you out. And I know it’s weird because you aren’t her parent.”
“Jana, really, it’s okay. I don’t mind. When do I need to be there?”
She gives me the time and a couple of other details that I need to know before we hang up the phone.
When I get back to washing my dishes in the now-cool water, it occurs to me that this Tali thing is going to make me late for my typical morning jog. I could just skip it altogether, but it’s so much a part of my routine now that I know it’ll mess my whole day up if I skip it.
It has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve gotten used to my little races with Liz every morning.
Okay, maybe it has a little to do with that.
As much as we can’t stand each other, our time on the trails is half decent. Her need to always turn it into a race not only makes it more fun for our rivalry, but it gives me a better workout.
Based on the time that Jana gave me, I should be able to squeeze both in. I will just have to be late for the run. Maybe if I get there in enough time, we can do a quick couple of laps before I have to get ready for work.
I don’t quite know how I went from not wanting a single thing to do with this woman to looking forward to running with her in the mornings, but here we are. I think it’s just refreshing to find someone who enjoys a good morning run as much as I do. And the fact that we have a crazy desire to leave the other in our dust makes it more fun than running alone.
When I call her princess in the middle of it, it pisses her off, and she kicks it into overdrive. Then, I get to push myself to try to catch up.
And I get to stare at her ass as she pulls ahead.
It’s a win-win.
So, it’s settled. I’ll pick Tali up and head to school with her before my morning run, and then, I’ll attempt to make it there in time.
I’m sure Liz will be fine without me for a little while.