26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIV E
brADY
“ S weetheart!” my mom exclaims when she enters the hotel room. “Honey, let me look at you!”
I stand up, setting the TV remote down on the bed. “Hey, Ma.”
“Give me a hug! You look great, Brady!” She squeezes me tightly. “And, wow. So firm,” she comments, squeezing my left bicep. “Been working out, huh?”
“Jeez, way to embarrass a guy.” I laugh.
“Sorry! Sorry. You just look so grown up is all.”
“Well, thank you. You look nice, too. You changed your hair,” I say, because one cannot help but notice that yes, my mother has dyed her hair the colors of a rainbow. Red bangs, orange crown, then blonde, green, blue, and purple down her back.
“You love it, don’t you? It’s called rainbowmbre. ”
She looks a little like a My Little Pony , to be honest. But it’s fine. Somehow, my mom can pull off some wacky shit. “Really nice.”
“So, dish! I want to hear everything.”
“Actually, I’m starving. Can we go eat? ”
“Of course, of course,” she says. “Let me just freshen up. There’s a cute little spot called Olde Mistick Village that I want to go see.”
“As long as they have food there, that sounds great.”
They do. We go to a place called The Jealous Monk, where we share something called a Pretzel Charcuterie Board and I order a Monk Burger. Mom orders a salmon BLT. I get a beer and she gets a hard cider, and only once the drinks and apps have arrived do I start to settle in and feel ready to talk.
Not that we haven’t been talking this whole time, mind you.
Mom goes on about her writing. She’s working on a new novel (her “WIP,” she calls it) about a ghost that lives in a cornfield.
It’s supposed to be a metaphor, and I don’t 100% understand it, but that’s fine.
She’s happy, and I'm happy for her. After all those years of misery with my father, she deserves it.
Speaking of his royal dickface, Mom informs me that he tried to contact her after our falling out, but she very clearly sided with me and told him the bare minimum. He wanted to know where I moved to, what I’m doing for work – and none of that is any of his business, Mom says.
Then she tells me she’s seeing someone. His name is Rank. No, not Frank . Rank. As in The King ranks higher than the nine in cards. Or, your breath smells rank.
Poor guy.
She met him at yoga. He sells fancy mailboxes for a living.
She’s happy.
That’s all that matters.
She asks me again. “How are you doing, sweetheart? Tell me everything.” She sips her cider. “I want to know about the girlfriend, the – oh, wait. Is it okay that I call her that?”
I chuckle. “Yes, Ma. Gretchen’s my girlfriend.”
She claps. “I love it!” she exclaims. “Okay, so I need to know about her, about the job interview, about your living situation. Wherever you want to start. The floor is yours.” My mother beams at me.
“I guess I’ll start with Gretchen. She’s amazing. I’m really into her.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “She’s funny, smart, beautiful. Total package,” I say. “She’s studying to be a teacher.”
“And what does she do now?”
“She’s in school. She’s in the process of trying to get an after-school job for the year. But I met her at the Diamond Excelsior. She was a waitress at the pub.”
“Nice,” Mom says. “Good, honest work.”
The irony of this is not lost on me, but I ignore it and go on. “The only issue is, she’s definitely a Cape Cod lifer.”
“I knew there was a but. ”
“Well, it’s not a but , though. It’s just, I got a job offer today.”
“Brady! That’s amazing!”
“In New York,” I add.
“Wait – you mean, the job you just interviewed for? They offered you the position on the spot?”
“Not exactly. I had the interview this morning, and they called me later in the day. But I have to give them an answer by Monday. And I don’t know what to do.”
“I thought you said that job was remote,” she says.
“I thought it was remote. But apparently, they wrote ‘hybrid’ instead of ‘remote’ in their listing and I confused the two. They said it’s two days from home, three days in the office.”
“I see.” Mom chews on a cheese-dipped pretzel thoughtfully.
“I think the job is such a great fit in every other way, Ma. It’s in market research, which I love, the pay is excellent, good benefits. There’s even a 401k.”
“But…”
“But, what about Gretchen? I love her.”
She swallows back a grin. I’m sure she’d classify this in the Aw, look how cute category. “And there’s no way she would move to New York?” she asks.
“She can’t. She’s in the process of being placed in her student teaching for the year. She owns her condo. Like, what 26 year-old do you know of who actually owns real estate?”
“Sounds pretty put together.”
“She’s amazing,” I admit. I sip my beer.
“So, what is it? You don’t think you can do the long distance thing?”
“No, it’s not that – although, quite honestly, I do think that would be challenging.
I just…” My voice trails off. “I just feel like she has it all figured out. She has a plan, and it’s a solid one.
I, on the other hand, have basically been unemployed all summer, squatting in someone else’s apartment.
I feel like she deserves more. And so, here’s my chance to be something.
To be, I don’t know. Worthy of her. But the only way to do it is to compromise how comfortable we are right now by making things difficult for us. ”
My mom nods, processing my verbal diarrhea over her BLT. “What if –” she begins, “and, now, just hear me out – what if a challenge is exactly what you guys need?”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, it’s been easy so far, right?”
“I guess,” I say, thinking back on how we met, how we both lost our jobs, how we stumbled into the same living situation and the same line of work. “Yeah, maybe not easy , exactly. But definitely convenient. ”
“Right. That’s what I mean. It’s been convenient. But, Brady, life is not always convenient. If you guys are going to work for the long haul, you’re going to have to face challenges at some point, you know?”
I take a bite of my burger, considering her point as I chew. “I just don’t want to mess up a good thing.” I leave out the fact that up until today, being with Gretchen has been the only good thing I’ve had in a really long time.
“Of course, honey. I understand that,” she replies. “Just remember, sometimes overcoming obstacles makes a relationship stronger.”
“Yeah, and sometimes it makes a relationship fall apart.”
“But wouldn’t you rather discover that now? As opposed to finding out that you don’t have what it takes to weather a storm together after you’re married and have a child?” I hear the undertones. I know she’s referring to the life she had with my dad.
Gretchen and I are nothing like my parents.
“ I think we do have what it takes, Ma. I really, really like this girl.”
“So then, you should talk to her about it. See if you guys can come up with a solution together.”
I nod. “You’re right.” I sigh. I feel a little lighter. We can figure it out. As long as we have each other, we’ll be fine.
“Sometimes that happens,” she says with a smirk.
“Thank you. Really. I feel a lot better.”
“My pleasure, sweetie.”
“Now, can I ask you an important question?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever driven in Manhattan?”
“God, no!” she exclaims.
I laugh, and we cheers our drinks to that.
The rest of the evening goes really smoothly. I miss my mother, I realize, and I wish Gretchen was here so she could meet her. They would hit it off instantly, I’m sure.
After dinner, we walk around the cute little shops in Olde Mistick Village and I stand off to the side as she tastes a variety of fancy infused honey, pores over a high-end store featuring kitchen gadgets, and peruses a purveyor of lotions and soaps.
When she’s finished with her shopping, we drive back to the hotel.
I check the time. It’s after 8:00. I want to call Gretchen but I know she’s working tonight, so I figure I’ll shoot her a text to say goodnight and save my phone call for the morning.
Needless to say, I am more than a little bit alarmed when my phone wakes me up at 2:30 in the morning. It’s set to vibrate, but it’s dancing all over the nightstand like nobody’s business. And it’s a 508 number, but not one that I recognize .
I pick up. “Hello?” I whisper.
“Yo, Brady, it’s Mike.”
“What’s up, man? You okay?”
“Not really. I’m sorry to wake you, but bro, we need your help.”
“We? Huh?”
My mom rolls over in her bed. “Everything okay, honey?” she asks.
“Yeah, Ma. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep,” I say, hopping out of bed. I go into the bathroom and squint at the light, closing the door behind me. “What happened? What do you need?”
“There was a bust at Cosmo. Cops raided the place.”
“Oh, shit.”
“We’re all being held at the Wellingham Police Station.”
“Held?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
“Like, in jail. We were arrested.”
“Who was?”
“All of us, dude. Me, Gretchen and the girls, Max, Billy, Tommy, and even two of the chicks from this party. Shit got out of hand tonight.”
My heart drops when he says Gretchen’s name. “Okay, so what do you need? What can I do?”
“We each need to post bail of $500. Also, I need you to call Gina.”
“Okay. I’ll figure out the money. How do I do that? Can I use a credit card?” I start to sweat. My trip to New York was expensive, but I still have $1,200 in my bank account, so at least I can cover Big Mike and Gretchen. “Also, why didn’t you call Gina? ”
“It has to be cash, Brady. And I called you first because –” He lowers his voice and says something else.
“Wait. What? I can’t hear you.”
“Gretchen’s not allowed to leave,” he repeats, only a fraction of a decibel louder.
“Why not?”
“Her dad won’t let her.”
“What? Why not?” I don’t understand. What the fuck is happening right now?
“Gretchen’s dad led the raid, Bray.”