Page 4 of Take It Till You Make It
“K. I’m gonna return the rented trailer and stop at the store to stock us up on my way home. There’s some pizza from last night in the fridge if you get hungry. Text me if you think of anything else.”
“Thanks, baby girl.”
I hate that there is no inflection to her tone when she says that. She has said that to me my whole life, but it was always with affection, sometimes joy, sometimes humor, but this new toneless delivery ruins it completely. She’s just going through the motions.
I don’t bother closing the door since she’ll be alone. Well, not quite alone. I glance through the living room. Queen Brie, our ancient Colorpoint, is traumatized somewhere around this condo.Me too, Queeny. Me too.
My map app helps me find the way to the trailer return. I am so relieved to drop that thing off, still in one piece, it isn’t even funny. Clearly, after dragging that thing around for more than two thousand miles, I’m proficient, but if I never have to drive with a trailer attached again, it’ll be too soon. I feel my shoulders relax as I drive away and realize they’ve been up around my ears for the last week. Or however long it took us to get here. It feels like months.
Next, I lean on my map app to steer me to the grocery store nearest our home, but when I pull into the parking lot, I have to drive through a homeless encampment to find parking. More shopping carts are parked along the outside of the temporary shelters than in the cart corrals. A guy who, based on his clothing and lack of cleanliness, I’m guessing is from the camp, stands just outside the store’s doors, ranting and waving his arms at people who are exiting or entering.
Reprogramming the app, I ask for the next nearest grocery store. It’s surprisingly old and worn, but otherwise seems safe for a young female to patronize on her own. I fill my cart with convenience foods and junk. I don’t know how to cook and can’t take that on right now, so the microwave will have to remain our chef for the time being. Because I’m starving, I grab a couple of sandwiches from the deli counter so I’ll have something to eat as soon as I get home. Maybe Mom will pick out some of the meat and cheese from hers.
Once again, map app to the rescue. It gets me home without incident. Carrying the groceries up the stairs—though easier than the trailer of belongings I unloaded almost completely by myself—tells me I might not have thought through the second-floor condo thing thoroughly.
“Hey, Mom. I’m home.”
When there’s no answer, I drop my bags on the counter and go peek into her room. She’s asleep. Or she’s pretending. I don’t know. I sweep the room to see if Queeny is perched on a pile of boxes or the warm television. Not seeing her, I close the door and go unload groceries.
I put Mom’s sandwich in the fridge for when she’s awake again, and I take mine and a soda outside. Weaving my way through the condo complex, I come out the other side and stare at the vast beach crawling with humanity. I cannot get over how many people there are in California. I’ve been to downtown Indianapolis and experienced a lot of people, but I grew up in a suburb. A small town. Here, there are people everywhere. One town after the next stuffed with people.
When Mom and I flew here for my reading, I wasn’t looking at it the same way I am now. Then it was shiny and new. Now that I must figure out how to exist in it, the traffic, the lines, the people everywhere are overwhelming.
I cross the big street with the pedestrian light, and as soon as I step up onto the curb, I silently scold myself for not bringing a towel or something to sit on. Trudging through the sand, I promise myself I’ll take off my shoes and socks once I’m seated. I find a good spot to view the ocean and sink to my butt on the sun-warmed sand. Once my toes are bare, I dig them into the sand and unwrap half my sandwich. The shush of the ocean, the cry of the gulls, the chattering of the people, the competing music, it all fades to background noise as I eat my sandwich and consider tomorrow.
The jury that lives inside my head is still deliberating over whether moving across the country was a good idea or not, but what’s done is done. I’ve committed, and I need to be all in. Dad always said, “If you’re going to do something, always do it to your best ability. Otherwise, do something else.”
So, tomorrow when I show up at the studio, I’ll be one hundred percent committed to playing a thirteen-year-old smart aleck, youngest daughter.
Thinking of how I can do it the way Dad taught me helps to ease some of my trepidations. It no longer matters if I made a good choice because now I have to make the best of it.
I pick up my soda can and open my camera app. Framing the photo so that it shows half the can, and my thumb in the forefront, but focused on the waves in the background, I snap the photo and text it to Glory.
Me: Lunch in my new backyard.
I guess it’s technically my front yard, but who eats in their front yard?
Glory: Stop it! You’re seriously that close to the ocean?
Me: Yep. Might take up surfing.
A picture of Glory’s little brother, snotty nose, hair sticking up, wide brown eyes staring at the camera, pops up.
Glory:Babysitting the extra. Mom and Phil are at some dinner party tonight. What’s she going to do when I graduate and follow my bff to California?
The extra is what we call her little brother. Glory’s parents are divorced, and her mom remarried a couple years ago and then shocked everyone, including herself, when she ended up pregnant.
Me: She’ll have to pay someone to watch him! Wipe that kid’s nose!
Glory: It’s a never-ending job. And if I leave it, he’ll just swipe it onto his hand and then lick it off anyway.
Me:[vomiting emoji]
Glory: He’s the grossest little thing in the world.
Me: And you love every little gross inch of him.
Glory: To the moon and back.
