Thirty. New Year’s Absolutions #2
“See? Happy endings are great,” Frankie says. “I don’t have a card on me, but here.” She fishes a pen from her tote bag and writes a number on a receipt from the Buy the Weigh candy store. “Text me if you ever need an extra set of eyes on your next script.”
I’m dazedly Windexing the prize case, not believing my luck at having Frankie Carroll’s number while also maintaining certainty I’ll never write anything I’d feel okay asking my favorite living screen writer to read, when my mom calls.
I ignore the ringing because I know I disappointed her when I left before Christmas.
Also, Bolero wants me to shoot a video on her break, which starts soon.
She’s offered me one hundred bucks to help her shoot a series of TikToks about signs that the older generation should have practiced more facial acceptance.
Apparently, my undereye bags, uneven skin tone, and lip slip (a term that I guess refers to my lips having bad posture) all could have been prevented if only I embraced my true face from day one.
I need the money, so I’m game for whatever humiliation she has in store.
My phone keeps buzzing. “Can you just get that?” Bolero says. “I sense that it’s a distraction, and we won’t be vibing when I point out your critical face card misplays.”
“It’s just my mom,” I say. “It’s fine.”
“Talk to your mom,” she says. “Because your earlobes look beset by woe, and that usually means you’re putting off an important conversation.”
“Thanks, Bolero.” She’s eerily, maybe, right?
“You’re welcome. People pay me a lot for that kind of consultation, but I don’t mind giving it to you for freesies. It’s pro bono for the less fortunate.”
I press my slouchy lips into a tight smile and pick up the call. “Hi, Mom.” I’m sheepish as I say “Mom.” And I should be. I ruined her Christmas. On the actual day, I sent her a Merry Christmas GIF, and not even a funny one. I’m an awful daughter.
“You’re okay!”
“Yeah. I’m okay.” I go silent and so does she.
“Jill…” I can hear my parents’ television blaring somewhere in the background. Finally, she speaks. “I’m sorry if I was pushing you. With Grant.”
Oh. She’s diving right in. I allow a long silence as I pace away from Bolero toward the pinball machines at the back of the arcade.
The Dracula-themed pinball machine has credits left in it.
Someone must not have realized they won a free game.
I pull the plunger back, watching the silver ball fling forward, curve around the top of the machine, and drop into the miniature open coffin, which closes as the scoreboard racks up several thousand points.
I stare at the mounting numbers as I put together what I want to say to my mom.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say. I remember the sight of Grant and Fiona in the bar and wonder if they’re together right now. “It was just hard to be home. You and Dad are so happy. And Brian has his perfect kids and perfect wife.”
“Dog’s a pervert, though,” Mom says, and I giggle. I watch as the little coffin lid rises and my ball shoots out. I’m caught off guard as it makes a beeline for the gutter between my two flippers. It’s gone before I can attempt to stop it.
“Yeah, Pepper is full-on sleaze,” I agree. “But I don’t feel like I fit with all of you.”
“How could you say that? You’re my daughter. We love you. So much,” Mom says. She sniffs, and I can imagine her expression as she blinks away tears. Great—I’ve made my mom cry mere days into the new year.
“I know you do,” I say. “But I also know I’m a screwup. I don’t know why anyone would want me around, when I’m such a disappointment,” I say.
“Jill, how many times do I have to tell you that you’re not at all a disappointment?” My mom sounds stern. “Why would you think that?”
The ball for my second turn is still waiting in the chute.
Holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder, I pull the plunger again, releasing it with more force than last time.
The ball shoots up around the bend and into the game, bouncing off miniature tombstones and missing a trip to Dracula’s castle as it disappears into the void.
“Because. I am. Look at your life compared to mine. You have a family and grandkids and way too many Christmas decorations. I have a fake tree I pulled out of someone’s trash. ”
Bolero is disinterestedly talking to a group of boys about her age who are all clearly in love with her.
“Jill! I would rather you didn’t bring home other people’s garbage, but I am not disappointed in you,” Mom says. “I admire you and adore you. If I thought you were happy on your own, I’d be happy. And for a while, I told myself you were. But now…”
“Now what?” I halfheartedly release the last ball on the pinball game, but it only goes halfway up the chute and rolls back down. I pull weakly on the plunger several more times, watching the ball make progress, fail, roll back to where it started. My very own metaphor.
“I’m not sure you’ve been happy in a long time.”
Tears so big they feel like they’ve been forming for years start to fall from my eyes as Dracula’s signature rumbling laugh bellows out of the machine.
“I’m not,” I say. “And I feel like whatever I do, I’ll just screw up.
” I mean, I screwed up being the star of a Heartfelt movie, and those things follow a formula , I don’t say.
“Honey, that’s not the case at all,” she says.
“Do you ever think maybe you’re trying to stay one step ahead of your own story?
The same way you dashed out of here before Christmas Day, because it was easier than getting through it when you felt cruddy.
And not to bring him up again, but is it possible that you pushed Grant away? ”
Grant in Sweetville said the same thing, more or less.
And the longer I’ve had time to consider it, the more I know he was right.
I loved him so much I tried to avoid all the hard talks and the negotiations real couples have because I assumed they wouldn’t go in my favor.
One foot out the door, getting in my own way, to use Grant’s and Allie’s ways of putting it.
“I’ve been thinking that a lot,” I say. “But it’s still too late now.”
“Maybe it is,” Mom says. “But it’s not too late to learn something from it.
Love is hard. Or, really, the love part isn’t hard, but when you love someone, it can make the rest hard.
Love is telling yourself that you’ll weather some complications and some compromises if it means you get to have that feeling of being perfectly at home with someone.
There’s always going to be a risk it won’t work out, but without the risk, there’s no reward, either. ”
There was a reason I liked Mondays with Grant so much.
They were just us. No outside complications, just our bubble.
But those days were just as unreal as a Heartfelt movie, where we never have to see what happens after the decorations come down, or witness the morning after the happily ever afters.
Is it possible life isn’t all or nothing but a little of everything—the sweet cookie made more interesting because you added a little spice of the unexpected?
The same way flavors balance each other out to form a unique whole, I could embrace the complexities of being with someone I love to arrive at the perfect recipe.
And holy shit—did I actually learn something about baking?
“Thanks for looking out for me, Mom,” I say.
“I love you, sweetie,” she tells me. “And I’m so proud of you.”
That makes one of us.