“You’re never an inconvenience! I will be at your Career Day bright and early to represent you well and make all your classmates jealous.”
Visions of superiority danced in my head.
“All right, then. This will be fun! Maybe we can make a day of it? It’s a Friday. December 11—”
“Hold on. The eleventh? Of December?”
The click-clack of her nails on her keyboard invaded my earpiece. She was undoubtedly scrolling through her calendar to discover a prior engagement more important than a school visit. I sighed.
“It’s okay. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving in a couple of days anyway.”
“No!” she said sharply. “I can move things around... And didn’t your father speak to you about Thanksgiving?”
Come on.
“He did not... What was he was supposed to tell me?”
“I thought that was why this call has been so uncomfortable.”
“Really? I thought it was because we have nothing to say to each other.”
“Alaine. I will not have you use that tone with me. I don’t care how upset you are,” she said with the steely voice she reserved for dictators and despots. “I have an important meeting I can’t miss and Thanksgiving was the only date that would work.”
“What’s the point of hosting your own show if you still have to come in on holidays?” I asked. “Who is so busy that they don’t take Thanksgiving off and then force other people to miss out on turkey?”
“I can’t discuss that with you right now.”
I snorted.
“Okay, Jane Bond—that was the last joke,” I added hastily.
“It better be,” she said. “All I can say is that I’m going to Germany for a few days.”
“Tell the chancellor I say hey,” I grumbled.
“Let’s put a pin in it,” she said. “Your father told me he’s seen you typing away on your new computer. I’m glad.”
“Hold up,” I said. “Of course giving me this laptop was supposed to be some sort of consolation prize for you not showing up.”
She stayed quiet.
“Well, if we’re turning into the kind of family that just buys each other’s love, can I get a new car the next time you can’t make it to a family function? Should be around December 11.”
“Alaine. I. Will. Be. There.”
“Sure, sure, but if you aren’t, please understand that Dad’s old 1998 Toyota Camry has sufficiently built my character and I’m ready to move on,” I said. “I’m not looking for luxury! Just working passenger-seat windows.” Disappointment was an expected emotion when dealing with my mom, but it still exhausted me. I retreated into my cocoon of cleverness and let her off the hook. For now.
“I wouldn’t be missing Thanksgiving unless I really had to. I promise I will be at Career Day.”
“Sounds good,” I said, unconvinced. The thing was, I’ve always gotten the sense that it didn’t take much to miss a date with me. And sometimes I didn’t feel like being the inconvenient daughter.
I hung up the phone. On the way to the kitchen to lick my wounds with a bowl of strawberry mint ice cream, I slowed down as I neared my dad’s room. Might as well tell him that Mom was doing Career Day (so he could get his burning jealousy out of the way before waking up for work the next morning). Unlike my parents, I didn’t wait an eternity before sharing information. His door was slightly ajar and I could hear him pacing on the large rug beside his bed.
“I’m sorry, but it isn’t my responsibility to constantly break bad news to her on your behalf... You’ve had days to do this,” he said, surely defending himself against whatever blame Mom was now trying to pin on him. Ugh. My ear was still warm from my phone and she had already called Dad to complain. “You shouldn’t be afraid to talk to her. Really talk.”
I kept walking, aware of how this conversation would play out. I’d heard it all before. She could tell him about Career Day herself.
Monday, November 30
The Life and Times of Alaine Beauparlant
My mother is late.
It was a nice surprise when she followed up with me a couple days after I invited her to Career Day to get more details and figure out what was actually required of her. I said she could just show up and show out be herself. I would work on the rest. She wouldn’t take that as an answer.
“What is ‘the rest’?”
“It’s nothing. They just wanted the speakers to write a biography of themselves and a list of tips for us—what do you old folks call us—spring chickens.”
“I have so much to say! Consider it done.”
That’s where we’d left things. Based on our track record, I could see it going one of two ways: either she’d write a five-hundred-page tome of all of her journalistic accomplishments, real and imagined, and film a ten-minute news package of the pieces of wisdom she’d acquired from that week she spent shadowing Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook...or she would completely forget.
To be fair, in this particular instance, she remembered...but hadn’t gotten to it yet.
Is the end of the week okay? she texted me last night.
Is it cool that the reason she didn’t have time to write up her career tip sheet was that she’d scored an exclusive interview with some whistle-blower who’d leaked sensitive government secrets to the public? Uh, duh. Is it uncool that days ago I had offered to slap something together for her so she wouldn’t have to worry about it, but she insisted she wanted to do it herself? Kinda!
I know I’m coming off a little dramatic (quelle surprise), but that’s how I felt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super proud of my mom! How many people can say that they have one of the most well-known journalists in the world as a parent? Not many, I can tell you. And I’m definitely not saying that I didn’t want my mom to reach her ultimate career potential.
I really want her to!
Seriously!
Look at these exclamation points!
I look up to everything that she’s done so far as a journalist, and I’d be lying if I said that I wanted to become a journalist myself because of anyone but her.
One of the main things that bugs me about getting so upset whenever I think about my mom is that I always feel strangely anti-feminist. Who am I to stop her from Leaning In? She should go and conquer the world! Break that glass ceiling! But is it too much to ask that she try a little harder to fit me into her calendar somewhere between Monday’s hair appointment and Friday’s quest for world domination? Especially for Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite holidays ever, maybe even more than my birthday. A socially acceptable time to gorge yourself on as much delicious food as possible all in the name of gratitude? Count me in.