Authors: Mar'ce Merrell

Wicked Sweet (26 page)

BOOK: Wicked Sweet

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Around the Word. Wednesday Morning
.

T
his is what I have discovered. When you are stuck in a too-small sweltering house with six little boys, you think. About your potential, and theirs. Parker is clearly the expert when it comes to hockey skills. But I worry, you know, about deciding that hockey is the best investment you can make when you’re young. Statistically speaking, few kids end up playing hockey as a career and a really small number of them are successful beyond the old-timers’ community league. And, statistically speaking, your best investment in your brain is learning to read. Kids who read at fifteen are more likely to graduate. That’s a debate fact. So I’m making my investment in my brothers. Post-it Notes, smelly markers, and a game.

“Living room is done!” Travis shouts.

“Living room is done!” Thomas echos.

“Living room is done!” Then Trevor.

I hold my fingers to my lips as I walk in the room. I remind them that Mom is sleeping and we’ve got to be quiet, but cannot help squealing at what I see. “Oh, it’s perfect!”

The Hat Trick have created their first Word Room. Pink, green, yellow, and purple Post-it Notes label every piece of furniture, the walls, the stir-fry of odds and ends in the living room.

Couch

Window

Dirty laundry

Cracker crumbs

Television

“It’s time for the Around the Word in Nine Minutes!” I proclaim. “Everyone line up!” Their mouths, still smeared with jam and peanut butter from breakfast, spread into wide smiles, teeth and gums showing. Baby Ollie jumps, jumps, jumps. I lift him out of the playpen and he gets in line behind Stevie. They wait for me to throw my arm down, for the race to begin. I start and then I stop. Their eyes are on me. On me. Holding my gaze. They love this. They love me. Isn’t that worth everything? I drop my arm and the boys begin the tour.

Thomas and Trevor lead the Double Minor from one sticky note to the next. Travis buddies up with baby Ollie. The Hat Trick says the word, the Double Minor and Ollie repeat it.

Old pizza crust

Little cars

Video game

We move as a flock from word to word, branching into the kitchen. Thomas opens the refrigerator.

Milk

Jam

Penis butter (Thomas! I take that one off and crumple it up.)

The cupboards reveal more words:

Stuffing

Rice

Noodles

Ketchup

We are an amoeba that grows with the words we eat. We spread out, searching for more, the Double Minor hand in hand, trying to sound out words on their own. Ollie is our pseudopod tail, dragging his blankie behind us. We blob down the hallway (carpet, wall, picture, hole) to the end. After a stop in the bathroom (poop, pee, diaper, stinky) we all gather in the area outside our bedrooms. The end of the Around the Word Tour. The beginning of quick, get dressed, we’re going to play hockey. But, they aren’t ready. Travis, Thomas, and Trevor each have Post-it Note pads and they continue to write down words. The boys’ names on their doors, my name on mine.

Love. Travis writes that word and sticks it on my door.

I feel warm now, and comfortable, and important. Valued. In a way I haven’t for a while. This is
my
project. I’ve decided what the boys need. Words. I want to grab Post-it Notes and write down important words for them. Stick them where they can never lose them.

Freedom

Independence

Responsibility

Pride

Courage

Kindness

Compassion

Love

Hope

They’re finished writing words now, and it’s time to move and instead of an amoeba, they decide we are a pack. A pack of hungry wolves. I follow the pups through the house. I howl in a ghostly whisper. Baby Ollie grips my leg and slows me down. I almost miss the moment.

The boys are in front of Mom’s bedroom door and before Travis or Trevor or Thomas can tell the Double Minor the words, Josh points at the first word and says, “Mom.” Stevie points at the second and says, “Door.”

The Hat Trick explodes in a wolf pack/hockey chant celebration with high-fives and howls. I join in, too, I can’t help it. The first day. The first day. And they are already reading. I hug them and the Hat Trick let me hug them and we know, we know so clearly, that we are a team. A word team. But our celebration ends.

“What the hell?” My mother’s voice comes through the door even before it swings open. We back away from the heat of her words. “You know I worked a double shift that ended last night, don’t you? And what the hell is this? A crime scene? What are you doing with them, Jillian? Playing
CSI
?”

“We’re teaching Josh and Stevie how to read.” Travis sticks his jaw out and I wonder if he understands the word courage even better than I do. He pulls Josh and Stevie in front of him, makes them stand in front of her. “They know this word means door and this one says Mom.” She tilts her head at Travis, does a quick survey of her audience, me included. I almost think she’s going to shut her door and let us alone. But I am wrong. Again.

“Oh whoopity dippity do!” She throws her arms up and gives a fake sort of smile. The Hat Trick are still gullible, they think she really is happy at their genius. “Give me that marker.” Travis hands the Sharpie to her. Now they think she’s joining in their game, that somehow she’s changed.

She turns her back to the boys and she writes on the dingy white
paint of her bedroom door. The boys are open-mouthed. I grounded them all two months ago when I caught them drawing on their bedroom wall.

Her letters are big and looping. And she’s laughing. Giggling at how funny she is. I’m thinking oh, no, now she’s going to be creating a permanent chalkboard of I-love-you-messages-to-Mom on her bedroom door. That’s so like her. Take anything good around here and make it about her.

Finally she’s finished and she backs away. The boys’ eyes widen with expectation.

“I’ll give you twenty dollars if you teach them to read that by the end of the day.”

Inside the outline of a huge heart, she’s written a message. She underlines each word with her hand as she reads it out loud.

“Shut The Hell Up.”

She laughs like it’s really funny. Because it is, to her. And she holds out her hand for a high-five from the Hat Trick. Thomas responds weakly. Travis and Trevor turn away from her. “Hey, get back here. Travis. Trevor.” She forces them to high-five her.

“Mom,” I say. “That isn’t very funny.”

“Jillian, you and I have different senses of humor.” She takes me on. “I accept that you’re boring. You’ll have to accept that I’m not.” She laughs again and holds up her hand for more high-fives.

“It’s stupid.” Travis sets his hands on his waist, refuses to play along with her I-love-me-and-so-do-you game.

“Stupid,” Trevor echoes.

“Stupid.” Then, Thomas.

“Stupid.” Josh.

“Stupid.” And Stevie.

“Stoof-eh.” Even baby Ollie tries it.

“Get out.” She glares at me. She adds a fake smile. In her dirty bathrobe and her wild hair I see her again, and again, the real her: nasty
and mean under a veneer of sarcasm. She is not the hippy mother who is a little scattered. That’s just a part she plays. She is more the character from a bad sitcom that no one believes is actually a mother, only a placeholder for cruel jokes.

She opens her bedroom door and Keith lolls in the background in his dopey plaid boxer shorts. He looks at me like a sheepdog, with a drooping moustache that he’s been growing ever since he saw the pictures of Dads 1, 2, and 3. They all had facial hair because my mother finds it manly. I hope my real dad is a grown-up now with a clean-shaven face; I imagine he’s moved on to all sorts of cosmopolitan choices by now.

I wonder what made my dad stop thinking about saving me and start thinking about escaping my mother.

Chantal

Cheetahs Always Get Caught.

Folding my dry ingredients into a dark chocolate cocoon of batter showers my brain with a tiara of sparking synapses.

I read the line twice. I try to say it out loud spontaneously, Nigella style.

Crud.

It’s like I’m talking with a mouthful of M&M’s and that thing I’m doing with my hair, tossing it over my shoulder, it’s too … not the real me. I try the line again, adding in pauses, trying to be Nigella instead of just acting like Nigella.

Better. This time I don’t even touch my hair.

“Darling, you’re brilliant.”
Nigella’s voice arrives at just the right time.

“Oh, you’re here. Listen to this …” I start my introduction from “Hello, Chantal the Cake Princess here,” but my pace is fast and my gait wobbly. I gain confidence through the bit about how Will is my target and then, I lose my momentum. It feels too long, too constructed, too complicated, like a cake with contradictory flavors. The white cake, vanilla frosting version is this:

I detest Will. With good reason.

I baked him some cakes.

He thought someone liked him.

No one does.

The end.

I try to rework the two paragraphs I’ve got about Will, but they fall flat, every time. I thought this part would be easy, but I start in on that paragraph and I begin to feel ill. It must be my allergies coming back. Eventually, I move on.

I try to channel my inner Nigella again. “The final cake is a fabulous example of overindulgence. Much like my inspiration Nigella Lawson, I am a more-is-more kind of person. What could be more hedonistic than deep dark chocolate cake, layered with the finest ganache, spread with chocolate Italian buttercream and decorated with a daring dash of Cheetah spots. In the world of cake, Cheetahs Always Get Caught.”

I glance up at the clock: 11:32 A.M. The Bee Yourself Honey Cake will have made its debut at the lake—it’s probably gone—by now. My mother will be going on her lunch break and will call my cell phone before she remembers the note I left her this morning that my cell is dead. My dad will know that I can be reached at his office only if there is an emergency. Jillian and her brothers are all engaged in practicing for tomorrow’s big tournament. I should be motivated to produce this video.

Revenge, darling,
I imagine Nigella’s wise words,
is only useful to get you started. If you’ve given in to it, you may spoil the taste of every cake you bake from now on.

“Nigella.” I need her to listen to me. “It’s all about revenge. I can’t separate the two. Not now. I am the Cake Princess because I’ve set Will up.”

Cinderella’s fairy godmother warned her about
midnight …

“But Cinderella was trying to get Prince Charming. I am trying to get rid of a frog. Evil Will.”

Darling … her voice persists in my brain.

“Enough, Nigella. I am in charge. Stop.” I command it and it is done. As if I were a real princess. I survey my ingredients and implements: white and pink bowls of measured flour, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, eggs, melted unsweetened chocolate, and buttermilk. Metal mixing bowls, whisks in two different sizes, the mixer with the paddle attached, a pink spatula, my prepared cake pans, and, finally, my pink gloves.

I stretch my pink dishwashing glove, trimmed in fur over my fingers. It’s crafted from materials I found in the hardware and scrapbooking store. Shimmery stick-on letters spell CAKE on one glove and PRINCESS on the other. I press the record button on the camcorder and rush to the stove. I turn the knob slowly to 350 degrees. The shot over, I run back, rewind, check it. Nope. Not perfect. I have to do four takes to get it right.

I set up for the second shot: the whisk is in the gloved hand. Hold it upright. Two seconds. Whisk. Ten seconds. Eggs blend. I lift the glass cup toward the camera, showing off the beaten eggs. Drop the whisk back in the measuring cup. Take off the pink glove. I race to the camera and press pause. I rewind fifteen seconds. Play.

It’s not perfect. You can see my arm, and I’ve stuck my other hand in the picture, and I’ve forgotten to put on the second pink glove. I rewind. Pull on the gloves. Move to record. Again. Again. Again.

On my fifth take I whisk vigorously to add more action in the shot. I lift the measuring cup. The shot is finished. The take is perfect until the view of the eggs: black strings from the faux fur trail through the lemony goo.

I pick them out and I see more black. Stick-on S’s and C’s are floating among the eggs. I drop the whisk into the eggs. Now, I’ve got to reconstruct the gloves.

I lean against the cupboards. I need a break, maybe a permanent one. I drop my head in my hands. Idiot, my emotional editor screams.

I don’t recognize the tapping on the window above my head
until it is a pounding. What? Who? No. They’ve tracked me down. I pull off the pink gloves, shove them under my shirt, crawl like an army soldier along the cupboards where whoever is spying on me shouldn’t be able to see me. The pounding stops and when I think I’m safe, it begins again on the back door. Now, I hear a voice.

“Chantal. Chantal. It’s your mother. Let me in.”

We are in a standoff for a few minutes, me pretending I’m not in the kitchen, her telling me all the typical things like, I know you’re in there. I’m worried about you. She moves into specifics: “I talked to your dad. He told me you’re here, but he doesn’t know what you’re doing.”

And now questions: “Where have you been going every day? Who are you hanging out with? It’s not drugs, is it? You’re not using drugs, are you?” Then, pleading: “Your dad told me we needed to talk. We can work this out.” The panicked edge to her voice gets to me, but not enough for me to open the door. And then she tells me she’s going home to get Dad’s spare keys and she’ll let herself in. I stand up, open the door.

“Chantal.” She moves into my space.

“Mother.” I back up. “Everything’s okay. I’m baking cakes. That’s all.”

She couldn’t look more stunned if I’d just told her I was the Tooth Fairy’s assistant. Before she starts her litany of questions I tell her the details. Everything. When I baked my first cake, who I gave it to, where I’ve been baking, what kinds of cakes I’ve been baking, and why I started in the first place.

She moves to a counter stool, sets her arms next to the mixer, drops her head.

“Mom?”

Her shoulders shake. She’s crying. My mother. Crying.

“Mom? Mom. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t …”

“I …” She looks up, her eyes raccoon circled from her mascara and eyeliner. I hand her my dish towel.

“I thought it was about me.” She wipes her eyes. “I thought you were trying to push me out of your life.”

“What?”

“The secrets.”

“Mom.” I’ve seen my mother tear up before, but it never
hit
me. Not like this. Usually she cracks when I’m not doing what she needs me to do. Get all A’s, eat healthy, clean my room. But this is not about controlling me. My eyes begin to fill up, too, and my throat aches. I matter to her.
We
matter—as in our relationship. And that’s enough for me to let her in on my plan. A little.

We sit on the floor, our backs against the cupboards. My voice shakes as I tell her selected highlights of how I came to be baking cakes in Dad’s office. She listens.

“Baking is part of who I am. I have learned how to communicate in a language that people accept. They really love my cakes.” I pause because honestly, I’ll start bawling if I say more.

She lifts an eyebrow. Sniffles. Is that disapproval?

“I was desperate,” I say. “And I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“Desperate.” I think she is going to begin a lecture that will never end. It will blow up the kitchen, Dad’s office, and my entire life. But she doesn’t. She just gets quiet. “Desperate,” she repeats. “I understand desperate.”

I stand up, move to the counter, and drag a fork through the beaten eggs, pull out a C and a P. I stay silent. Maybe she’ll leave if she thinks I’m uncooperative. Dad will be home tomorrow and he can be our mediator.

“You don’t have to do this,” my mother finally says.

“Do what?”

“Bake for them. To make them like you. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Um … okay.” Do I tell her I’m not doing it for them?

“It’s okay if you just want to be good at one thing. Just because
they expect something more out of you doesn’t mean you have to conform to their ideas of who you should be.”

“Mother, who are we talking about here?”

“You.”

“No, we’re not. Because no one asked me to be the Cake Princess. I invented it. It was all my idea. I found Nigella Lawson on the TV and I wanted what she had. Fun. Love of food.” She stares at me, her mouth slightly open, as if she is surprised. This is me, I want to yell. This is me.

“Nigella says that when she sees someone who is overweight she doesn’t think, oh what a pity. She thinks, wow, I bet that person has tasted some amazing food in her life. I like the way that sounds. She doesn’t have as many rules.” And I realize that’s what’s wrong with my video. Not enough Joy, too much Take That, Will. Now, I really need my mother to leave so I can finish it. My brain is rocketing with new ideas. A new script. A new angle.

“And this woman, Nigella, you met her on TV?”

“I found her. She’s a domestic goddess. She has her own TV show. She cooks. She … um … she says great things like, ‘Isn’t this buttercream utter gorgeousness’ and …” I see a slice of a smile in her face.

“And she talks about needing a squidge of something and she calls … uh … her children
darling
.” My mother’s face startles at the accent I’ve added. “She’s British.” I go on, telling her every episode I remember of Nigella Lawson. I expect that Nigella will start talking to me, but her voice is silent. The more I talk, the more this concerns me. I sent her away earlier and suddenly she seems more of a TV star who lives in Britain and less of a fairy godmother. Did Cinderella ever see her fairy godmother again? I slip into silence and my mother and I mirror one another, chins in our hands, thoughts flying about to other places and people. My mother talks first.

“We need to collect some rocks.”

“What?” I have no idea where she’s going with this; maybe it’s part of a new fitness regime.

“You and I need to go for walks and find rocks, take time for peace and beauty. You know, we work too hard.” And her face settles into despair. I remember her medication. I remember how she’s been sleeping or working, little else.

She surveys my bowls and video camera, my pink dishwashing glove—the evidence that I’m in love with things that she despises. If she knew how I compare her to Nigella, she’d be devastated.

“Fine. We can collect rocks.”

I notice a slight shift: her right eyebrow lifting, her jaw relaxing.

“But can I finish my video first?”

“You’re making a video? A YouTube thing?” Her face registers shock that I would be putting myself on the Internet, but she composes herself quickly. “I suppose. Yes, a video is fine.”

My mother doesn’t have any confessions to offer, she doesn’t make any apologies, she doesn’t take me in her arms, and we don’t break down crying in each other’s embrace. Real life is mostly, well, real. All of the above my mother doesn’t do. But what
does
she do? She picks my shot list off the counter. Pulls my script off the fridge. She studies them both. I bite the inside of my lip, chew a hole that will take weeks to heal.

“Okay,” she finally says. “I’ll be the camera operator,” like we’ve been planning this all along.

“Great,” I say. “But first I need to make some modifications to the script.”

BOOK: Wicked Sweet

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