Nice to see you, too, Pam.
Seeing Pam reminds me that I should sell my condo and move. I could roll the equity from this one into a new one. One with a bathtub. And no Pam. Yes, yes, I’ll get to it. I will. Some day. Just like looking for freelance jobs that are a bit more serious. With a bit more… integrity. I’ll do it. Just not right this second. Because like finding new writing gigs, selling my condo seems like… a giant ask. I’d have to spring-clean. I’d have to stage it (I doubt anyone would buy it with all my boxes in the study). I’d have to find a real estate agent, I’d have to find a new place. So many steps. And it’s easier… not to do all the steps. But I will. Someday.
Outside, Larry finds his tree, does his business, and I tie up the evidence in a plastic doggie bag, even though if I were a worse person (like the ones down the street), I would just kick some snow over it and call it a day. When the snow melts in the spring, sometimes it feels like a slow reveal of this mountain of literal shit around the base of every tree down the block. I buzz open the locked entry door of my apartment building and head up the stairs, Larry in tow.
I get inside and unbundle myself as Larry shakes off a bit of snow from his fur just as my phone rings. I see Mom’s picture pop up on the screen.
“Mom? Hey. What’s up?” I answer.
“Have you gone keto?” For a second, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Mom speaks quickly—as if worried she’ll get cut off mid-sentence. Mom, born in Hawaii to Japanese American parents, moved to the mainland for college in Iowa, where she met my Scottish American dad. In case you didn’t know, I’m literally a walking mini melting pot. Think of me as human fondue.
“Have I… gone what?”
“I’m keto, too! We can do it together!” I realize, belatedly, she means the carb-free diet. I sigh and roll my eyes. Mom never asks me to do anything for fun unless it’s dieting or exercise related. I’m a size fourteen. Mom is somewhere above an eighteen, though relentlessly yearns to be a size two, and talks about it endlessly. In all honesty, I’m fine with being a size fourteen. I’ve long since made peace with the fact that I’ll never be a two, but Mom somehow thinks we’re both on the same page. Yo-yo dieters forever. No matter how often I try to tell her to stop roping me into her fad diets, she does it anyway.
“Mom, I’m not on the keto diet.”
“But you are all about bacon. Instead of men?” Oh no. She’s been reading my articles.
“Yes. I’m giving up on men. I’m eating bacon. Donuts. Whatever I want. I amnotdieting. That’s kind of the point.”
“No!” Mom gasps like I just confessed I’m a cannibal. “But your sister’s wedding is coming up? The pictures?”
“Yes, I know. I’ll just have to be a fat whale in them, Mom.”
Mom sucks in a breath on the other end of the phone andthen barks a laugh. I can always make Mom laugh. It’s a superpower. “Sora!” She chuckles. “You know that’s not what I mean. You are not a fat whale.”
“More like a porky porpoise, then?”
“No, no, no.” She laughs some more and backtracks. “Ineed to lose weight.” Mom and I have always shared the exact same body type. So, when she tells me she needs to lose weight, she might as well be telling me the same thing. “I just thought it’d be something fun to do together. We big-boned girls have to stay together!”
I hate it when she tries to lump us together as two hopeless fatties. And here, I’ve already called myself a fat whale to distract and divert. But Mom won’t be waylaid. Years of resentment bubbles to the surface. I remember the Christmas that she got us both matching Fitbits, even though I didn’t ask for one. Then there was the time she signed us up for a joint gym membership for my birthday. When I was fourteen.
“How about we just go see a movie instead?”
Mom laughs as if I’m joking, but I’m not joking. “But the popcorn! So many calories.” She clicks her tongue in disapproval.
“Mom—” Here’s where I need to tell her that I’m done with her fad diets, that if she feels the need to do it, great, but—then I hear my dad’s voice in my head.
Sora! Be nice!This was Dad’s constant refrain. He usually yelled it, because he was the only man in a house full of women, and all he desperately wanted was peace and quiet and no drama. Which he never got. And this made him short-tempered, or maybe he was just short-tempered to begin with, or maybe it was his on-call, all-hours-of-the-day-or-night job running his small plumbing business that kept him perpetually grumpy. Idon’t know, but from the time I was little all I remember was that he ended every argument, even if he never started them.
Dad died last year of a heart attack, but I still feel like he’s right here with me, ready to shut down any disagreement with a barked command. I learned early that dissent wasn’t worth enduring Dad’s stormy looks and gritted teeth. Don’t be the nail, indeed.
“You’ve got a responsibility, Sora. You’re the maid of honor.” She says it as if the title is actually an honor. “You can’t give up, sweetie. Your sister’s wedding is less than a month away.”
“I know, Mom.” I pace in the kitchen next to my open laptop. I accidentally hit the squeaky board. I know that will make Pam, below me, fume.
“Have you found a date yet?”
I sigh. “No, and I probably won’t, either.” Now I suddenly see the genius of Solo February. I kill two birds with one stone. Nami is getting married the first weekend in March. If I’ve sworn off men forwork,then I don’t have to worry about scrounging up some awful date, either! Genius!
“Oh, don’t talk about yourself like that. Of course you will. Besides, there’s always one of the groomsmen. I think one or even two of them are single.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Mitch’s friends are…” I struggle to say something that’s not too critical but also honest. I don’t need to set Mom off. I try not to criticize Nami to Mom. Mom never tolerates me critiquing anything Nami does. But Mitch and his friends… ugh. I remember meeting a couple of them at one of Nami and Mitch’s Super Bowl parties last year. They talked entirely in memes. Mitch is definitely the only tolerable one in the bunch. And that’s only because he doesn’t talk much.I suspect his mind works in the same way as his friends’ in that he’s motivated solely by beer, ass, or football. Not necessarily in that order. Mitch just has the good sense to keep his mouth shut. In that way, he’s only slightly better than the rest of his friends.
“Mom, you don’t understand.” Time to play the trump card. “I’m not going to be looking for one. I’ve vowed to go solo for February. It’s my assignment. For work. That means no dates. No men. For February.”
Mom falls silent. All I hear are my own squeaky floorboards beneath my feet as I pace. Distantly, below me, I hear Pam retaliate by blaring her favoriteJock Jams Volume 4mix. The warbled sounds of Chumbawamba drift up through my uninsulated floor. This makes me want to get Larry’s ball out and play fetch in the hallway, but I refrain.
