Chapter 8 – Ramona
Chapter Eight
Ramona
“ Y ou better take your shoes off before coming into my house,” Ma bellows from her spot in the living room the moment I step through the door. “And hurry up and close the door…”
“You don’t pay to keep the outside cool,” Darius, Alise, and I say in unison. Ma is forever talking about heating or cooling the outside. Apparently, leaving the door open for over two seconds, even if you haven’t gotten inside yet, is cause for alarm.
“Not like we’ve had the air on for the last few weeks,” Darius mumbles.
“I heard that!” Ma shouts again, and we all crack up laughing.
You’d think that if she can’t hear us when we were standing right next to her, she wouldn’t be able to hear us when we were halfway across the house, but you’d be wrong. I like to call it selective biddy hearing. She hears what she wants to when she wants to hear it, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. It’s beyond annoying, but what am I going to do but grin and bear it?
I toe off my shoes near the door and make my way through the foyer and into the family room. The room hasn’t changed much over the years. The same grey rug sits a few feet from the fireplace, directly in front of the most comfortable dark blue couch I’ve ever sat on. Trust me, I’m not kidding. I love that couch so much that I had it repaired when it started squeaking a few years ago because of some busted springs.
There is a matching chair to the left of the couch and two light brown end tables flanking each side with a matching rectangular coffee table positioned in the center of the rug with a small vase of daisies sitting in the center.
Ma is sitting in her spot on the left-hand side of the couch, near the dining room. And yes, her spot. God help the person who is sitting in her place on the couch when she wants to sit down. We’ve all learned to just stay away from that side of the couch, choosing to sit on the floor instead of facing her wrath.
“Hey, baby girl. How was your day at work?” Ma asks, her head tilted to the side, waiting for her kiss.
“It was all right.” I smile down at her, planting a kiss on her cheek. “I spent most of the day in the pasture with the cows and then rushed to Darius’s hockey practice.”
“You went to hockey practice like that?” Her perfectly manicured eyebrows are pulled down in confusion. “Why didn’t you come home and take a shower first?”
That’s my mother for you. She’s old-school. From the never-leaves-the-house-without-a-full-face-of-makeup or not-a-hair out-of-place generation. The fact I never wear more than tinted moisturizer and lip gloss has driven her nuts for years, but she means well. To her, looking any less than perfect gives the Annamaries of the world something to pick at. Something to be used to tear you down for their enjoyment. She truly believes that if we don’t give them anything to criticize, they will keep their mouths shut. Unfortunately, we all know that’s not the case.
“Because I didn’t have time. Someone demanded I rush to The Chill Zone immediately after work.”
“What did you do now, Alise Michelle?” Ma grabs the remote and pauses whatever she’s watching on the television, giving the two of us all her attention. Ma pauses her shows for no one, and I mean no one , so she must mean business. I actually kind of feel sorry for throwing Alise under the bus.
“ Moi ?” Alise reels back in mock surprise. “I did nothing, Auntie. Besides, I don’t think Cooper gave two shits about what she looked like when he eye-fucked her for most of practice.”
“Language, young lady. You are never too old to have your mouth washed out with soap,” Ma chastises before whirling around and turning her attention toward me.
And here I was feeling bad for throwing Alise under the bus about not letting me come home to shower. Welp, not anymore. My mind races for some way to change the subject when Darius comes striding in to save the day.
“Trust me. It’s nasty. Ten out of ten, do not recommend it.” Darius groans before planting a kiss on Ma’s other cheek. “Hey, Nanny. I’m gonna go shower and get ready for bed.”
Darius winks at me over Ma’s head before heading through the foyer toward the other side of the house. I’m going to need to get that kid a present or something for swooping in to save the day. Now, fingers crossed that was enough of a distraction for Ma to forget everything Alise said.
“Such a good boy, unlike your two aunties here,” she coos after him before turning her attention back to us.
“Darius is such a suck-up. Besides, it’s not our fault he likes hot sauce so much,” I whisper to Alise.
When he was younger, Darius never knew when to shut up, always saying the first thing that popped into his head, so he’s had many run-ins with a bottle of hot sauce. He got hot sauce put on his tongue so much, Ma had to stop giving it to him. Apparently, he developed a taste for it, making it an ineffective form of punishment. It seems that soap is doing a pretty decent job in its place.
Alise bumps my shoulder, leaning toward me, trying to make sure Ma can’t hear us. “He needs to learn to fake it like we did.”
“You two never faked it. You just learned to like hot sauce after having it put on your tongue so much.” Ma crosses her arms, waiting for one of us to explain.
My eyes lock with Alise’s, begging her to keep her mouth shut about Cooper’s and my interaction at the rink. The last thing I need is Ma asking me questions about what happened, mostly because I don’t even know what happened. Sure, we had a moment. Okay, two moments, but that means nothing. Although Alise has other ideas, I’m not about to share those ideas with my mother because that will lead to more questions.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Auntie.” Ma eyes her skeptically but motions with her hand for Alise to continue speaking. “I really didn’t. Call it preemptive measures because I didn’t want to go to jail tonight.”
“So that Sutton girl was giving you a hard time again, and you were going to use your fists instead of your words?”
Alise and I nod our heads in agreement before she smiles at Ma and says, “I’m the muscle, and our girl, Ramona, is the brains.”
That’s how it is now, but it wasn’t always that way. Imani, Alise, and I were a force to be reckoned with. I learned at a young age how to talk my way out of sticky situations. Alise was the muscle, and Imani was the perfect combination of the two of us. She was also eleven years older than us, so we called her instead of our parents when we needed bailing out, and that happened a lot more than I’d like to admit.
“Haven’t you heard the saying ‘words cut deeper than knives’?”
“Who said that? Biggie?” Alise responds, causing me to guffaw, but I slam my mouth shut the minute Ma looks my way. She’s losing her patience with the two of us, and I’m way too tired to stand here and listen to one of her tirades.
“No, you goof. It was William Chapman,” I respond quickly, trying to stop the verbal ass-whooping Alise is about to get from Ma.
“Ah. You always know what the old white dudes have to say.”
“Alise Michelle Moore,” Ma groans, readying that ass-whooping I was worried about.
I usually sit back and let it happen, laughing my ass off at my best friend's expense, but I kind of owe her for calming me down earlier, so I jump in. “Ma, what have you been up to all day? Have you even moved from that spot since you woke up this morning?”
“First, I’m a grown-ass woman and can sit in this chair for as long as I want. Second, after watching my shows, I started rewatching Mormon Wives on Hulu.”
“I know, right? I’ve been re-watching it when I can to see if there are any clues about who the heck might have left that message for Mayci’s Sinner Sunday Confession.” Alise plops down on the couch next to Ma and pats the seat beside her.
Nothing brings a family together quite like some trashy reality television. Most women my age are out partying with their friends on a Friday night, but not us. Even if I have to work a shift at The Pit Stop, I never miss an episode of Mormon Wives on TV. Ma has some beef with having a DVR, but we have all the streaming services, thanks to Darius. If there’s one thing people can always count on is that the King family, even Darius, can be found right here, watching whatever trashy television show has piqued our interest.
“I haven’t been able to think of anything else since the season ended last month.”
“I’ll make some popcorn while you get the episode started from the beginning,” Ma says as she throws off the blanket covering her lap and pushes herself up off the couch. Thankfully, her cane is sitting right on the other side of the couch arm, making it easier for her to move around the house.
I eye Ma as she makes her way slowly toward the kitchen. She’s almost sixty-five years old and moves around much slower than she used to, but I’m not about to tell her that. However, when she’s shuffling past me, I notice something out of the ordinary. “Ma, you aren’t dressed.”
My ma, who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing sweatpants, is in fact wearing a pair of dark gray sweatpants with a matching zip-up hoodie layered over a green T-shirt. What in the actual fuck is going on right now? Her patented pixie cut was styled perfectly when we came home, not a hair out of place, as per her usual. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, but it makes sense she chose not to put any on since she didn’t plan on leaving the house at all today.
“Auntie, what’s wrong?” Alise cocks her head to the side, her eyes roaming Ma’s form. “You’d never be caught dead wearing a pair of sweatpants.”
She looks down at her attire before rolling her eyes at me. “You two are overreacting, as usual. I am dressed.”
“But, Ma, you’re wearing sweatpants.”
Ma stops in her tracks, spinning around to face Alise and me. “I didn’t have to go pick up Darius from school today because he had student council before heading to practice, so I didn’t bother getting out of my house clothes.”
“House clothes?” Alise and I respond in unison, the concept completely new to both of us.
“Yes, house clothes. There’s no sense in wasting a perfectly suitable outfit if all I’m doing is sitting on my behind in the house all day. Who’s going to do all that laundry?”
I bite my tongue, not wanting to get into this argument with her again. I do everything around here, and I mean everything. I’m not complaining. I would just love a thank-you from her every once in a while, that’s all. I could be anywhere else or even have my own apartment in town, but I stayed here. I still sleep in the same twin bed my parents bought when we moved in, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t want her to be alone after everything that happened, and when Darius came along, it just made things easier for everyone.
“I never want to hear you complaining about my sweatpants again,” I mumble before flopping down on the other end of the couch.
“I’ve never had a problem with you wearing them in the house, Mona. It’s when you try to go out in public wearing them. Sweatpants aren’t proper attire to be wearing when you might run into someone you know.”
What she said without saying is that no man is going to want you if you’re always dressed like a slob. The joys of having a mother who demands perfection every time you walk out of the house. Do I ever listen? Sometimes, but that never stops her from giving me an earful every time I don’t.
“Okay, Ma,” I answer, hearing her unspoken statement as she makes her way into the kitchen and disappears from sight.
Alise waits until we can hear the cabinets opening and closing before she slides closer to me on the couch. “Do you think she forgot what I said about Cooper?”
“I sure hope so. After our last conversation, I don’t want to hear her mouth when she learns I met a superstar hockey player smelling like the farm.”
“You don’t smell like the farm, thank God. If you had, I’d have turned you right around and marched you back to your car to get the body spray.”
“What would I do without you?” I giggle before planting a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
“That’s disgusting, Mona. And you never have to find out because I’m a fungus. You aren’t getting rid of me now.” She flashes me one of her beaming smiles.
“Ramona, where the hell did you put the popcorn?” Ma yells from the kitchen.
“It's in the cupboard above the microwave. The movie theater butter you like is in the plastic bottle right next to it. “
“I don’t know why you always insist on moving things around in the kitchen. I can’t ever find anything here anymore.”
What she doesn't remember is that the last time we went to the grocery store, she told me to put the popcorn there instead of in the pantry where it has always been. Something about never being able to find it because it was in the pantry. Am I going to remind her of that? No, I am not. I don’t have a death wish.
“And don’t think I forgot what Alise said about you making googly eyes at some man at practice.”
“Not just some man, Auntie. It was Cooper Hendrix,” Alise responds in a sing-song tone.
“You aren’t helping,” I growl before picking up one of the throw pillows and smacking her in the face with it.
“You are definitely telling me everything from the beginning before we start this episode.”
“Yes, Ma.” I sigh in defeat.
Nothing good can come of telling Ma about what happened between Cooper Hendrix and me. Nothing good at all.