Chapter 31
31
She’s kept me waiting so long, I’ve made up my mind to leave and then chickened out no less than three times. It’s funny how we never really grow out of being our parents’ children. Because sitting here frozen with indecision feels like being in time-out, and the second I turn my nose away from the corner, Beverly Robinson’s going to jump out of the closet and add five more minutes to my punishment.
The server has topped off my sweet tea twice, and my leg is bouncing with so much vigor, I’ve nearly shaken the flatware off the table. I hadn’t originally planned on taking my mother up on her request to meet for lunch. But when Miles asking me to simply show up at tonight’s game sent me into an emotional tailspin, partly spurred on by my unprocessed childhood trauma, I figured facing things with The Source might do both of us some good.
But just when I’ve settled on dropping some cash so I can bounce, Beverly Robinson appears on the patio of South LA’s Post & Beam. And like Lena Horne’s Glinda the Good, she is the picture of beauty and grace in her crisp linen set and fresh silk press. It’s not until she arrives at the table and takes her seat, however, that I see her delicately placed mask crumbling.
“I’m sorry I’m late, honey,” she says, removing her Chanel shades. “It’s um…well, let’s say it’s been… a day .” Her eyes are red-rimmed and slightly puffy, with fine lines etching worrisome grooves around her mouth.
Unsure of whether or not to overlook her obvious distress or to call attention to it, I offer a handful of crumpled napkins. “Mom, are you okay?” I settle on asking.
“Perfectly so,” she says, her words clipped and perky. Then she blows her nose in the most dainty, unobtrusive way. “Tell me about things. How are you? How is the…” She pauses, eyes glancing around the patio. When she looks back at me, she lowers her voice. “How are the divorce proceedings?”
I bristle at this because the last time we spoke, confirming I’d served Elliot, might as well have been the same as telling her I’d stormed the Capitol on January 6. In my stunned silence, I notice an errant tear escape the corner of her eye. She moves quickly to swipe it away.
Having had enough of the pretenses, I place my palms flat on the table. “Okay, Mom. You’re clearly crying. Please. What’s going on?” I ask.
She pushes out a gust of air, then gently folds her hands in her lap. “We’re going to need something stronger than that sweet tea you’ve got there,” she says, nodding toward my glass.
We order Bloody Marys and while we wait, my mother drops a mini bomb. “So, I saw your music video. The one with the baseball player. He’s very attractive.” She tells me this before sipping her water and waggling her eyebrows. It’s a diversionary tactic, I’m sure. And while it won’t knock me off course for getting to the bottom of her poorly masked trauma, it has succeeded in making me very uncomfortable.
I don’t know how to calibrate my response. If she and I had a healthy mother-daughter relationship, we’d probably share a giggle or two about the hottie I got to make out with on a rainy rooftop in the name of show business. Then she’d probably take a nostalgic detour and recall the story of how I ran home crying in seventh grade because I’d had my first kiss with Sammy Larson on the bus and sparks didn’t fly. But our relationship has never been healthy. And she wasn’t even home the night after I’d kissed Sammy in the back of the school bus.
“I’m in love with him,” I tell her. I hadn’t intended to. But it sort of just flies out of me like a caged bird set free. “That ‘very attractive’ baseball player I was in the video with. His name is Miles Westbrook. And I think I want to try to make things work with him…for forever. If I can swing it.”
That my cold, distant mother is the first person in the world I’ve confessed this to could probably hold its own in the second verse to Alanis’s “Ironic.” But here we are. And there it is—the truth.
At my confession, Beverly gurgles her water. Just about spits it up. I could laugh because Beverly Robinson is typically nothing if not composed. After taking a moment to get herself together, she says, “You—you’re telling me the rumors they’re printing have all been true? That you cheated on…” She pauses, adjusting her rising volume back down to a whisper. “That you cheated on Elliot?”
Of course this would be her response to my declaration of love. I close my eyes and exhale through my nose. Shoop, shoop , as Whitney Houston would say. “Nothing happened between me and Miles before Elliot and I legally separated,” I tell her, resenting the fact I have to persuade even my own mother that I’m not the Jezebel the tabloids have painted me to be. Never mind the fact that Elliot’s rampant, well-documented cheating seems to be a total nonissue for her, and seemingly everyone else too. “Hell, I never even met Miles until after we were legally separated.”
She takes a moment to process what I’ve said. Adjusting her crisp collar and fiddling with an earring, she appears nervous to ask her next question. “Does he…are you happy with him? This Miles Westbrook person?”
To say I’m knocked off-balance by this would be an understatement. Suddenly, my eyes sting and I fear I might cry. Wordlessly, I nod yes.
Without looking at me, she asks, “Could you be happy without him?”
This question surprises me in a different way. Not only because it’s one I have yet to consider, but because something about the way my mom asks it makes me think it’s more for her than me. And now she’s crying again.
“Mom, can we cut through the pretenses here? Will you just tell me what’s going on with you?” I ask.
She sucks in a long, slow breath, then lets it out on a shaky exhale. “Your father has decided to file for a divorce,” she says, her words measured but thick with emotion. “The writing has been on the wall, I suppose. But I was served the papers this morning…by his sister…the bitch always loathed me. Had the nerve to smile as she did it too.”
Apart from knowing that my mother seldom ever curses, I feel queasy and defensive of her from the visual she describes. And yet the fact that I immediately default to empathy for a woman who has so often shown me the opposite makes me want to book an emergency session with my therapist.
“How did you know when Elliot was cheating?” she asks me next, and I’m thrown for another loop. I glance up in search of our server, or any server, in hopes our alcohol is on its way soon.
“Ah. Is that what’s going on? Dad’s been fooling around?” I ask, trying to contain my alarm.
She looks over her shoulder. “Would you keep your voice down?” she scolds.
Exasperated, I glance at the sky and pray for rain, a comet, anything to end this. “I’m sorry, Mom, I’m having a hard time understanding why you asked for this lunch. I don’t know if you were expecting an emotional support daughter to show up today, but news flash, last I checked my life’s in shambles too.”
At long last, the Bloody Marys arrive. Our server sets them down, and I immediately ask for another shot for mine. It’s a good thing I Uber’d here from Studio City, because at the rate we’re going, I wouldn’t be fit to drive back to the rental in Malibu anyway. “Ella, I’m sorry. Again, it’s just that all your life you’ve seemed to skate by so unbothered and untouched by things. It all seemed to come so easily for you…even this divorce. I mean here you are mere months later already onto the next! I guess I was a bit hands off with you growing up…but some of us had to struggle for the things we have in life. I simply don’t think you understand.”
Oh, I’ll be needing that extra shot all right. “You know what’s not easy?” I ask her. “Growing up knowing the person you admire most, the person you most want to make proud, couldn’t be bothered to give you even the smallest validation,” I say, voice quivering. “So you get to a point where you discount it all and pretend it doesn’t matter that to your mother, you’ll never be enough. But deep down, it will always matter. And no, Mother…things have not been easy for me. It might look that way to someone who hasn’t cared enough to pay attention. But that’s beside the point, because you know what? Parents should want things to be easier for their children than they were for them…and not resent them because of it.”
The server arrives with the extra shot, and before he sets it down on the table, I intercept it, thank him kindly, and take it down the hatch. Then I do what I should have done before Beverly Robinson arrived. I get up and leave.
ESPN: LA Dodgers Star Pitcher Miles Westbrook & Mega Producer Elliot Majors Scuffle in Alleyway
A representative from Elliot Majors’s communications team has signaled his intentions to file charges with the LASD against LA Dodgers starting pitcher Miles Westbrook. In recent months, Westbrook has been romantically linked to R&B singer Ella Simone. According to publicly available court documents, Simone filed for divorce from Majors in January.
Photographers snapped the above photos of an apparent scuffle between the two men which took place in the alleyway of West Hollywood fine dining establishment Sempre, Mia. In the photos, Majors is seen taking a tumble to the ground while partially entangled with a visibly upset Westbrook. In subsequent snaps, Majors is seen with cuts and bruises to his face. Bystanders also reported he departed the scene with a limp. Westbrook is pictured cradling his pitching arm.
These photos come as a shock and potential setback after what has become a critical year for Westbrook following a disastrous end to the Dodgers’ 2023 World Series run. Sports fans will remember last year’s physical altercation between Westbrook and Dodgers right fielder Jorge Morales. Sources close to the situation reported at the time that the team was in warm-ups when news broke of an alleged monthslong affair between Morales and Westbrook’s then wife and college sweetheart, Monica Westbrook.
Footage from the locker room that was obtained and disseminated by TMZ showed Westbrook throwing the first punch. This resulted in his immediate suspension and a $25,000 fine. Morales was traded to the Marlins. The Dodgers would go on to lose the championship to the Rangers.
While video footage of the alleged altercation between Westbrook and Majors has yet to surface, this development is sure to complicate what league experts have coined a much-needed “Road to Redemption” year for Miles Westbrook. Images of the ace pitcher cradling his pitching arm are sure to raise eyebrows with Dodgers coaching, management, and fans. If Majors were to press charges, Westbrook’s status with the Dodgers could very well be in serious question.
I toggle over to select the silent ride option on the Uber app as I lean on the parking meter outside of the restaurant. I’m not a smoker, but if one walked by, I’d be tempted to bum a cigarette for the first time in my life. I don’t know what I hoped to get out of a lunch with Beverly, but I did walk away with some unexpected clarity. Now I know that I don’t want to become so jaded about my past that it stops me from experiencing the full spectrum of what the rest of my life has to offer.
Reaching in my tote for my phone to call Miles and tell him that yes, I will take him up on the offer to attend tonight’s game— cold feet be damned—I notice a barrage of missed calls and texts. Before I can swipe open to check them, I’m getting an incoming call from Jamie. I answer on the first ring.
“Hey,” I say. “What the hell is going on?”
“Are you sitting down?” she asks, and for once there’s no levity or sarcasm coming from her.
“Don’t have that option at the moment,” I say. “Is everyone all right? You’re scaring me.”
“It’s Miles…and Elliot,” she says, and instantly my heart plummets to my stomach. “It’s being reported that they got into some sort of physical altercation last night?”
For a second, everything goes black, and if it weren’t for the meter, I’d have surely fallen down. “Jamie, tell me no one’s hurt,” I demand, surprised I can even speak at the moment.
“Only cuts and bruises,” she confirms. “And Miles’s arm is fucked up. He’s on the injured list for tonight.”
At this I put Jamie on speaker so I can sift through my notifications, hoping to see something from Miles. Swiping with my thumb, I see a dozen texts from Rodney, calls from Janet and Angelo, even a message from Sheryl…but nothing from Miles.
“Jamie,” I say, on the verge of tears. “Where is he? I have to get to him, okay?”
“I know, babe,” she says. “Gabe’s on his way to you, I sent him a pin of your location. You’ll be with Miles soon.”