“I’m okay.” I reached out to pull back the curtain. The fog still lazed heavily outside, making the cars on the main road look all hazy. I couldn’t hear them though, the place must have good double-glazing. “I slept on the plane.”
“You hungry? I know a great place over the road. It’s about as American as you can get.”
I was actually more gagging for a cup of tea and some Marmite on toast, rather than a USA feast, but I didn’t want to ruin our reunion by being unenthusiastic.
So I dropped the curtain, looked at the stranger’s face that was half my face and forced myself to smile.
“Yummy. Sounds great.”
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
Small talk
+
The biggest lump of meat the world has ever known
Three
“Mum, it’s like someone puked up America in here.”
I stepped past a glowing jukebox. The “diner” looked like the womb in which Grease had been incubated. The waitresses wore faux fifties hair with cute little aprons, and, wherever I looked, a framed photo of Elvis Presley stared back. Customers sat at a high white countertop, perching on shiny stools and slurping tall milkshakes adorned with glacé cherries.
Mum laughed for the first time since I’d arrived, and asked for a table for two. Our waitress led us to an actual booth and gave us menus so big they obscured both my face and my hair.
I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at Mum, like she was my school crush or something. I peered over the top of my menu, while pretending to scan it. Her hair was swept nicely to one side as she considered the menu serenely, apparently not repressing a gaping well of emotion like I was. She looked so healthy. Thinner, less puff about her. Her clothes looked clean and new, which shouldn’t be notable, but is when you have a mum like mine. She was even wearing a thin belt, cinching her long white shirt in… Gone were the grimy jogging bottoms she’d come and pick me up in, the stale smell hidden by cheap perfume…
“What you having, hon?”
I managed to look at the menu. “I dunno. The Pink Lady burger maybe?”
“Mmmm. Yum. You’re in America now.”
The waitress clopped over, like she knew we were ready to order.
“What can I get y’all?” She held up her notepad.
“We’ll have a Pink Lady burger,” Mum said. “And a milkshake – Amber, do you want a milkshake? The strawberry flavour is good.”
I nodded dumbly.
“And I’ll have the fruit salad…” She handed the menus over.
“You’re only getting a fruit salad?” I asked. “I just ordered basically half a cow, and you’re nibbling watermelon?”
“Oh, I don’t really eat meat now. But you enjoy your food.”
“What do you mean, you don’t eat meat? You’ve always eaten meat.”
Mum gave me a thin smile I didn’t like.
“Well, I don’t any more. Not many people do in San Fran. I wanted to take you to this raw food restaurant, but I didn’t know how into it you’d be…”
She trailed off as the jukebox changed song, to that one John Travolta and Uma Thurman dance to in Pulp Fiction. Evie’d made us watch it for “educational purposes”.
I couldn’t believe Mum was a VEGETARIAN. Since when? She used to make the most amazing roast every Sunday – lamb with her special mint sauce. Well, not every Sunday. Especially not the Sundays after that day she came home from the hospital.
The food arrived and the joke I’d made about half a cow became an accurate observation. The burger towered on the plate, almost reaching my chin and swimming in an ocean of skinny fries. I took a large bite, but barely dented the meat. Mum daintily jabbed a grape with her fork, and I almost flinched. Everything was different. I hadn’t been planning on everything being different.
“So you looking forward to teaching the kids art this summer?”
I nodded – because I knew she wanted me to – though I hadn’t thought about it much. Bumface Kevin had said a condition of me coming to stay was to “pull my weight” and help out at the happy-clappy summer camp he’d bought right after the wedding, and art had seemed the obvious thing for me to teach. Mum had initially got me into art when I was pretty much still a toddler, and I’d clung to it like a drug, when she’d clung to…well…other things…
“Yes. Well, the children aren’t like Craig, are they?”
Mum laughed sharply, and almost dropped her fork.
“No. God, no… Sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at that.” We smiled at each other conspiratorially. “Is he still…bad?” she asked.
I thought back to the comment he’d made at the airport.
“He’s still the worst.”
Suddenly I wanted her to feel guilty – even though Craig wasn’t her fault. He was Penny’s fault. And Penny was Dad’s fault. Because Dad swapped Mum for a Laura-Ashley-wearing, cake-baking, pearl-clutching anti-mum.
But Mum had left me with them… To suffocate in my home in a cloud of Penny’s Chanel No. 5, where no one had my back any more. I used to have at least the weekends with her, now I had nothing.
Mum tactfully changed the topic, and that was new. We used to moan about the evils of Craig and Penny all the time, spending our weekends bitching and whinging, giggling like conspiratorial sisters rather than mother and daughter.
“So tell me about college. How did your summer exams go?”
“All right, I guess,” I said through my mouthful of beef. “I get the results when I’m back in England. I think I did okay, but it’s my portfolio that’s the most important thing for art college. I’m glad I don’t have to do General Studies any more too.”
“What about friends? Who are you hanging out with these days?”
I swallowed and grinned. “I’m really close to these two girls, Evie and Lottie. I met them at the start of the year and we just really clicked. Evie is…well, she’s tightly wound…” I got the intense stabbing of sadness I always get when I think of Evie. She has OCD, and had a massive relapse last year. She’s getting better though…whatever better means if you have OCD… “But she’s hilarious, and really smart and into films. And she talks like a grandma most of the time. Seriously, she actually used the word ‘yikes’ at my leaving party.”
“They threw you a leaving party? That’s awesome.”
I winced at the “awesome”.
“Yeah, it was.” I didn’t mention how drunk I’d got. “And then there’s Lottie. She’s, like, a genius, but she doesn’t want to be. She wants to go to Cambridge and become prime minister, but she dresses and behaves like a hippy, all lace and crochet. She’s always protesting about something or other. You’d like her.”
Mum took a slurp of her milkshake. “It’s great that you have a friend who believes in stuff.”
A warm beefy feeling spread through my belly.
“Well, actually, the three of us have formed this club. It’s like a feminism club where we meet and talk about women’s rights. We’ve campaigned for stuff too. Like, we got that horrible pop song about rape banned from being played on the college jukebox.”
Mum put down her milkshake.
“Really?” The corner of her mouth twitched upwards.
“Really.” The pride blew up in me. “We call ourselves the Spinster Club. We’ve taken the word ‘spinster’ and flipped its meaning.”
Mum looked at me, really looked at me. She reached across the booth to take my hand.
“That makes me so proud, hon.”
I bathed in the look she gave me. It felt so good to be…validated by her. Dad was a bit bemused by all my Spinster Club activity. Not a surprise really, considering he’d married Penny, who was half human, half talcum powder. I’d actually once overheard her telling Dad that my feminism was “a phase”.
“So,” Mum said, swallowing another grape. “Tell me then, are there any special boys back in the UK I should know about?”