Power Play (10 page)

Speechless. Shocked. Scandalized.

And I loved it.

“Mom?” I dipped my head into her bedroom. The TV blared, the lights were on, but I didn't see her. I tapped on the molding as I entered. “Mom?”

“I'm in the closet, Gaby,” she called.

When I reached her, various small mountains of clothes surrounded her.

“What are you doing?”

“Spring cleaning.” Mom snatched a pair of pants off the top shelf of her built-in closet—Dad's gift to her the Christmas after we'd moved in.

“It's December.” I picked up a gorgeous pink cashmere sweater and brushed it across my cheek. It smelled like Mom.

Mom smiled and turned to me, holding the pants low as if mentally fitting them on my body. “Then it's winter cleaning.”

She folded the pants and slung them Frisbee-style onto a stack in the corner of her closet. The piles at her feet were barely a heap. Mom owned more clothes, shoes, and accessories than a small department store.

Trendy, but age appropriate. Sexy, but classy. Mom rocked everything she wore. Never the frumpy car-pool lady who dropped her kids off wearing pj's and a baseball cap. Mom looked fabulous every time she left the house. Even to get the mail.

She can start out in a plain white T-shirt and jeans, wrap her neck in a scarf, pop on some sunglasses, and walk out the door ready for the paparazzi. She radiates confidence and beauty. I hope I'm not making her sound shallow, because my mom is anything but shallow. She believes in being ready for whatever life throws at you. The old “wear clean underwear” cliché, but on the outside as well.

“You can have that sweater if you want, Gaby,” Mom offered.

I lowered the cashmere I'd had clutched to my face like a security blanket. “It smells like you.”

“After a shower, I hope.” Mom winked. Her shoulders dropped as she exhaled a deep breath. Her eyes scanned the closet as if she were playing Risk and contemplating which country to attack next.

“Can I ask a favor?” I said.

“Sure, sweets.” She reached for a shoe box. “Whatcha need?”

“So, um, I have a date tonight.”

“What?” The box fell from Mom's hands and its contents—money in various paper and coin forms, not shoes—scattered across her feet.

“You have a secret cash stash?” I threw the sweater onto Mom and Dad's bed behind me and dropped to my knees to help clean up. “You making a break for it?”

Mom laughed. “Yeah, my collection of two-dollar bills and fifty-cent pieces will get me far.”

I gathered the bills and tapped them into a neat pile before handing it to Mom. She gathered handfuls of coins and dropped them into the box.

“So, a date, eh?” Mom replaced the lid on the shoe box and set it on a higher shelf. “Anyone I know?”

I kicked a pair of balled-up socks, sending them into the pile of pants. “Landon Taylor.”

“The hockey player?”

I nodded.

Mom turned to face me, her eyes squinted in scrutiny. “You have a date with Landon Taylor? Tonight?”

“Geez, Mom, you don't have to sound so surprised. Am I that ugly?” I didn't have the confidence my mom had. I also didn't have the fashion or makeup skills that she had.

My glamorous, girly, artsy mom had probably been pushed into an early midlife crisis when she realized that her only daughter would rather play hockey and work at a produce store than get her nails done and hit the mall.

Mom reached out and cupped my chin between her thumb and index fingers. “You are gorgeous, Gabriella. Never let me hear you say anything like that again. Got it?”

I nodded as best I could with my face trapped in her grip. She released her hold and continued, “I didn't know you two knew each other that well.”

“We've been hanging out ever since Papa's heart attack.”

“Ahhh. Tragedy bringing two hearts together.”

“Thankfully, it wasn't a tragedy.”

“True. But still. What an amazing way to meet. You can tell your kids their dad saved their grandpa's life.”

Mom looked off, a wistful gleam in her eyes. She was on the verge of going Polonius. I needed to put a stop to it before she started into long-winded monologue mode.

“Come on, Mom! It's a date, not an engagement party. Can I ask for the favor I need from you?”

“My independent daughter needs a favor from her little old mom? I'm all ears.”

“Can you please help me with my hair and makeup?”

Mom drew the back of one hand to her forehead and pawed at me with the other. She swayed from foot to foot. “I'm gonna faint. Help me, Gaby.”

“I don't have time for this. Forget I asked.” I turned around to go back to my room. Landon would be here to pick me up soon. I doubted I had enough time to get ready even without Mom's antics.

Mom's laugh filled the closet. She grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, and pulled me into an embrace.

“I'm so happy you asked me. I'd love to help.” She kissed the top of my head and took my hand. “Come on.”

Mom pulled out the chair pushed into the space between the two sinks in the master bathroom and patted the seat for me to sit. I'd watched her apply makeup and style her hair sitting on this chair hundreds of times. I'd always been interested in watching, but never had that urge to try it myself. Though I'd been allowed to wear makeup since sixth grade, I rarely did. My makeup routine consisted of tinted lip balm, and face powder and concealer to mask the occasional zit. I've made slight changes since then. I wear mascara now.

Mom pulled a cosmetics bag out of the cabinet underneath the sink and set it on the counter. She then opened up the top drawer on her side of the vanity and waded through brushes of every shape and size, from flat and fan to fluffy and fat.

As Mom patted my face with a sponge dipped in a thick foundation, a flash of regret washed over me.

I set my hand on her wrist. “Not too much. I don't want to look too done up.”

“Up.” She waved me out of the chair. When I stood, she turned the chair around so my back faced the mirror. Blind to the products and colors she'd laid out, I sat back in the chair and resigned myself to being her current project. Mom's talents lie in art, painting in particular, so I should know to trust her expertise.

I relaxed against the chair, as if it were the easel holding up my blank canvas face. Mom worked with quick and smooth movements. Her pressure switched from steady and firm while patting my face with the sponge, to light and feathery as she dusted a brush across my eyelids.

“You've got a crazy little sparkle in your eye,” I said when she stopped to dip a brush in something. “You've been waiting for the moment I asked for a boring-Gaby overhaul, haven't you?”

“Gaby, I couldn't care less if you wear makeup or not. I don't want to change you. I never have.”

“But admit it, Mom, you wish I were interested in all this stuff, right?” I picked up a fan-shaped brush and swept the tip of my finger across the plush bristles.

“I'm not sure where this is coming from.” Mom leaned toward me. “Close your eyes.”

I tossed the brush onto the counter and closed my eyes. “I don't know. Dating Landon makes me feel insecure. About my looks, my job, my hobbies.”

“Your job? Landon knows our family owns the store you work at.”

“I just meant, working at the store instead of going to college.”

“Landon didn't go to college, either. Did he even graduate high school?”

I shrugged. I honestly didn't know if he did.

Landon had been drafted by the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League when he was seventeen. He played in Oshawa for two years before being taken in the second round in the NHL Entry Draft by the Charlotte Aviators. He must've taken some kind of high school classes while in Oshawa. I'd have to ask him about that sometime.

“You should see the girls that chase him. They're all made up and bleached out.”

“You're gorgeous, Gaby.”

“You're my mom. Who happens to be hotter than any of the girls who go after him, so you'd never have to worry.” I opened my eyes.

“You shouldn't worry about made-up, bleachy girls, either. He chose you.” Mom popped my nose with a huge fluffy brush, then started circling it over the apples of my cheeks.

“Not too much, Mom.”

“Trust me, Gaby.”

“When can I look?” I asked.

“When I'm finished.”

“What if I hate it?”

“You won't.”

“Do I look like myself or made up?”

“All I'm doing is enhancing what you already have.” Mom turned around to grab a black tube off the counter.

After years of watching her, I knew lipstick was the final step. My knee shook up and down in nervous anticipation of the result.

“Stop shaking.” Mom conjured her inner hockey player and swung her hip into my knee. She took a step back, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinized her work. I really did feel like a painting. “You can look now.”

The words
bad makeup day
didn't exist in Mom's vocabulary, so there shouldn't have been a reason for my stomach to pulse with anxiety. I hopped off the chair and spun toward the mirror, anxious to see if I'd be joining the circus instead of meeting Landon tonight.

“Holy,” I whispered to the reflection of myself.

Still me, but enhanced, just as Mom promised. The eyeliner intensified my normal black mascara and made my brown eyes pop. The subtle pink color on my cheeks gave me a glow, rather than the round clown circle I'd expected. My skin tone appeared even, without being thick and caked on. I'd always thought of my mom as a brilliant artist, but she'd worked a different kind of magic with my simple, subtle transformation.

Mom brushed behind me to get to the other side of the vanity, which held Dad's toiletries. She opened the bottom drawer and reached into a large box.

“Here.” Mom held out a small square packet. As I reached out to accept it, I realized what she held and promptly dropped it as if she were handing me a meatloaf straight from the oven and I wasn't wearing hot mitts.

No.

No. No. No.

“Grow up, Gaby.” Mom bent down and picked up the condom, then thrust it at me again.

“I don't need it.”

“I don't care. It's always good to have one on hand. Just in case.”

“It's our first date.”

“Not true, Gabriella. You just admitted that you've been hanging out with him. You've had more late nights since your father's heart attack than you've had since you were a newborn. I just didn't know what was keeping you out. Or who.”

I wiggled away from her as she tried to tuck the condom in the back pocket of my jeans. “Mom, stop!”

“Humor me, Gaby. We haven't had the talk since you were a freshman in high school. And”—she paused, a silent homage to the enormous elephant on my back—”at least this way I know you're prepared with the tools to protect yourself.”

“Don't worry. I always have Mace in my purse.” I frowned as I plucked the condom out of Mom's fingers and stuffed it into my pocket.

“I'm not—” Mom stopped and shook her head. “Landon is—” Another pause. Another shake. Her shoulders dropped. “Not all guys are out to hurt you.”

“I know, Mom. I know. That's why I like Landon. He's gentle. He's compassionate. He understands.”

“Has it already come up?”

Mom began tossing the makeup back into her cosmetics bag as she waited for my answer. Her seemingly nonchalant question held the weight of an F-150 hauling cinder blocks.

The R-word is never easy to talk about. Not when it happens. Not after it happens. Mom won't even say the word. It's always
it
and I know exactly what
it
means. My family and I will dance around
it
for the rest of my life, or at least until
it
is finally a scar, instead of a fresh, but scabbed-over, wound.

“No, but we've already talked about a lot of intense stuff.”

Bending down to pick up a black tube that had rolled off the counter, I contemplated how to change the subject in a light but tactful way.

“What's wrong?” Mom held out her hand, and I dropped the mascara into it.

“I'm trying to figure out why Dad has a box of condoms in his bottom drawer. And it's grossing me out.”

Mom laughed as she zipped the cosmetics bag and set it back on its shelf under the sink. A place for everything. “We have two sons and a teenage daughter. We've had a box since Joey turned thirteen.”

I patted my back pocket as I walked out of the bathroom. “Not the same box, I hope.”

“Smart ass.” Mom swatted my butt as she followed me out.

As we passed the bed, I grabbed the pink cashmere sweater I'd tossed onto it earlier. “Can I wear this?”

“Of course.” Mom returned to her closet to finish her winter cleaning.

Before leaving the room, I turned around, ran to Mom, and wrapped my arms around her. “Thanks so much, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Gaby. Exactly how you are.” Mom returned the hug with a quick but fierce squeeze. “Gaby, wait!”

I hadn't taken two steps out of the closet when she called me back. Mom pulled down the shoe box with her secret money stash and retrieved a two-dollar bill. After folding it into quarters, she pulled at the collar of my shirt, reached in, and shoved the bill in my bra.

“What the hell, Mom?” I batted at her hands, but she was so quick.

“For good luck.” She winked and replaced the shoe box.

My mom sends her daughter on dates with condoms and a good luck two-dollar bill. I didn't know if I should feel grateful or horrified.

As I fished the bill out of my bra, Mom put her hands on my shoulders, halting my search. “I want you to be safe and in control, Gaby. But I also want you to have the time of your life. You deserve it.”