He's my Mom

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! I mean…I don’t know? I don’t want to be right. I want to be completely off my rocker with this one. Jeez, can you believe this?”

“No. I believe you, but are you sure?”

“Go with me, Frankie.”

“What?”

“Tomorrow, while Mom’s at work…”

“No, I’m not spying on my mother.”

“Please, Frank, I can’t trust myself on this. Please go with me to Mom’s house tomorrow.”

“Jillian, I have to work and so do you.”

“Vacation days.”

“Yea, Jill, I want to blow a vacation day to spy on Mom.”

“Alright, fine, I give up. But I have to know.”

Jillian pushed the speaker button to turn off the phone.

“Is Mom,” she whispered to her reflection, “a…” she ran to the bathroom. Jillian’s long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail holder since she had spent most of the evening crouched over the toilet. Jillian cleaned her face and brushed her teeth. The vanity mirror covering the wall above her porcelain sink presented more questions that she had no answers for. She ran her long, slender fingers across her forehead. “Oh, I wish I could just wake up and this nightmare be over.”

“Jillian scuffed her bare feet across the plush, lavender carpet that spilled into her circular bedroom. The deep purple comforter lay crinkled on one half of the perfectly round bed which was centered in the room under a classic disco ball. She used the remote to turn off the lights and open the curtains. Three minutes. She had actually timed her curtains. It took three minutes for the hot pink curtains to expose the floor to ceiling windows that cover three-fourths of the wall. Jillian loved looking over the chemical plant at night. She always wanted to live in the city so the lights from the plant gave her the illusion that she had made it to the big time. Jillian loved that she could drift off into a dream with stars in her eyes.

“What?!” Jillian woke every morning screaming into thin air. “Oh, shut up!” Jillian searched frantically through her covers for the remote. “Stop ringing!” She felt the remote between the covers but couldn't figure out how to get to it. Alarm clocks never worked for Jillian so she had Frank rig up an alarm that sounded like a ringing phone. She hated a ringing phone. “There.”

Jillian grabbed a pair of wrinkled jeans from the floor and pulled them up her long, sleek tanned legs. The size two jeans were tight but she refused to get larger jeans. The black AC/DC t-shirt she pulled over her head was two sizes too big.

As she walked through the kitchen, Jillian grabbed a sixteen-ounce Pepsi from the fridge. Through the door, a purple Bug with pink daisies awaited Jillian’s departure.

"Oh, man, I hope Frankie changes his mind. Maybe...no, he won't be there."

When the bug started roaring, Irene Cara started blaring from the CD player. “She can’t,” Jillian sighed as she backed into the street. By the end of the twenty-minute drive to her mother’s house, her thoughts had driven her mad. Suddenly, she felt a great calm, “Frank.”

Jillian’s thin, pink lips spread to show perfectly straightened, white teeth as she parked Daisy and opened the door in one swift movement. “Frankie, thanks for coming.”

“I still don’t believe it. But, here I am.”

Jillian threw her thin arms around her six foot seven inch brother. His dirty blonde hair smelled of peaches. “Peaches?”

“What?”

“Your hair. You smell like peaches.”

“Oh, hush. Some girl left it at my apartment."

“A girl brought shampoo to your house?”

“Yes, And she’s not coming back. Now, can we get to the business at hand?”

“Okay, okay,” Jillian pulled her keys from her pocket. “Let’s go.”

“You know, Jill, I didn’t even know Mom had high school annuals.”

“Neither did I. Well, until I ran across them yesterday.”

“Where are they? Hurry!”

“Calm down. Mom’s at work.”

“Yea, so are we.”

“I get your point.”

Jillian carefully moved the shelf of books.

“How did you just happen upon the annuals that seem to be hidden away?”

“Wait, they’re behind a false back in this bookshelf.”

“Again.”

“I was cleaning.”

“And.”

“Really, I was dusting and the back fell down. How could I have been looking for something that I didn’t know existed?”

“Alright, so let’s see them.”

“Here they are. Well, are you ready?”

“Let’s get this over with.”

Jillian opened the annual to the last page of the freshmen. “There she is. Jeremy Miller.”