She shrieks back, “Now you’re just being vindictive!” Chuckles lifts his palm like he’s giving me a high-five. If my mouth didn’t feel like wet sand and my head like a blow-up doll being inflated by a horny, newly released ex-con after serving twenty years, I’d high-five him right back. Then again, that didn’t go so well when Amy tried, so…
“And texting me about having a billionaire baby when I’m on a business meeting isn’t?” If I have to use much more energy to speak I’ll need more coffee.
“I was wishing you well.”
“You want designer grandchildren.”
“Is that so bad?”
Amanda is trying not to laugh, so I pick on her next. “And you! Some best friend. I refuse to hold your hand on those same-sex-marriage mortgage shops next week.”
“What the hell did I do wrong? I just told you not to be an idiot and let your squishy inner self go soft on Steve.”
“Too late,” I mutter. She gives me an eye roll that I take as a warning. A girlfriend lecture is coming soon, the kind where I just say, “I know, I know,” over and over and she tries in earnest to get me to realize that I don’t have to let him treat me like a doormat. Like the movie Groundhog Day, only I never actually learn from my mistakes.
This is why I have sworn off men.
Mom’s face goes three shades of pale. “Same sex what? Amanda, did you just say same-sex marriage? I thought Shannon was dating a billionaire now! A male one!” That look of horror Mom had earlier when I made the AARP comment pales in comparison to how she looks now.
Let me explain: for years, Mom assumed I was g*y because I didn’t like makeup, didn’t date men, and because I enjoyed visiting my friends in Northampton, the current lesbian capital of the world.
The only reason she would disapprove of my being g*y is that the Farmington Country Club technically has not allowed a g*y wedding just yet. Which is why I will never get married there, even if I do marry a billionaire. Not because I’m g*y. Because I think everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, should have an equal opportunity to be tortured by their mother into a wedding designed not to celebrate the nuptials of two people in love, but to allow the mother of the bride(s) to prance in all her glory and to scream hot-faced about the ribbons on the table centerpieces being the wrong shade of hot pink and to worry obsessively that Uncle Marty will ask the band to play “Stairway to Heaven” at the reception.
If you can survive that, you are meant for each other for eternity.
“One of the credit unions we do mystery shopping for has a bunch of evaluations where same-sex, legally married couples go into credit unions and apply for mortgages jointly. We’re evaluating for discrimination,” Amanda explains to Mom.
“With her credit score?” Mom says, pointing and laughing at me. “Shannon’s never met a credit card she didn’t like.”
That is so not true…anymore. I had my crazy credit-card spree days and I’m over that now. Loan payments on $50,000 in student debt will do that to you.
“And you have to go in and pretend to be married to each other?” Mom asks, skeptical. She squints one eye like she’s sizing us up to be measured for wedding gowns.
“Yes,” I say.
She looks at Amanda like I’m not even in the room. “Are you the man or the woman?”
“What?” Amanda and I say in unison.
“You know…tops and bottoms. Are you the top or the bottom, Amanda?” Mom looks at us like she’s asked whether we prefer pink roses or red roses, as if normal people ask whether hypothetical lesbians have a positioning preference.
“Your mother is so much better than mine,” I tell Amanda as I turn and look at her with a Please make it stop look. “She can’t even say the words ‘toilet paper’ in public conversation.”
“What does she call it?” Mom asks, fascinated.
“By the brand name, whatever she’s using,” Amanda explains.
“What does toilet paper have to do with lesbians and which one wears the strap-on?” Mom asks.
“OUT!” I bellow. “Get out of my room!”
“Why would you be offended by that, Shannon? Women use sex toys all the time, and I don’t mean just the lesbians,” Mom says.
I crawl out of bed and sit up, my head trying to secede from the rest of my body. “I really don’t want to talk about this,” I moan.
“I’ll bet if I checked your bedside drawer I’d find a stash,” Mom says. Her eyes flick over to my nightstand. I freeze.
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss.
“Moooooooom,” Amy calls out as she comes back in the room. “That’s another nine or ten therapy sessions you have to pay for if you go rifling around in Shannon’s drawer looking for rabbits and bullets.”
“What do bunnies and guns have to do with sex toys?” Mom looks at Amy like she’s crazy.
Amanda is now laughing so hard I think her intestines are twisting.
“You can go with Amanda when she does seven ‘marital aids’ shops next week,” I add, using my fingers for quote marks around “marital aids.”
“Why this?” Mom asks, mimicking me. “They are marital aids! You try sleeping with the same man for thirty-two years. It gets boring really fast. And there are only so many times you can play ‘The Pirate and the Maiden.’”
Amanda stops laughing abruptly.
Mom pats her hand. “I would love to come with you. Do we have to act like lesbians, though? Because if I’m going to walk into a sex-toy store, I’d prefer to come out of there with something Jason would enjoy, too. He’s getting adventurous, but a double-headed dildo might make him run screaming from me.”
My stomach gurgles in the ensuing silence, turning from a light groan of hunger to a disturbing warning of pending sickness. My sprint to the bathroom makes my head pound, but the cool tile of the floor soothes me, calming me instantly.
That’s right. A mother’s hand on my clammy forehead should help, but instead she’s out there talking about my dad and sex toys while my bathroom floor gives me more comfort.
A few minutes pass and I realize I still have a job. Work calls, and while I could probably text Greg and beg off for the day, I think getting back to work is better. I drag myself into the bedroom and Mom looks me up and down, opening her mouth to say something.
Amy appears to shoo them all into the kitchen for good, the quiet click of my bedroom doorknob giving me assurance.