Elise Lanier - Treading Lightly

“Are you getting good grades?”

And there was worst question number three. He constantly whined to Janine, “Does Grandma have to have the exact same conversation every time she calls? She’s lived, like, forever! Can’t she come up with any other questions? Since she feels the need to come up with any questions at all, that is. Why does she always think that asking me the same exact lame questions will give her any different answers? Have they ever changed, yet? Does she even hear my responses? Does she even care?”

“Yes, Grandma. Mostly A’s.”

Janine heard her mother cough up a disgusting wad of what she could now only picture as a big glob of “snot”—in Craig’s native tongue—on the other end of the phone. She wondered if Craig was picturing it too, and figured he most likely was. How appealing, she thought, as her mother went off on a hacking spree. She could have sworn she heard Craig mumble “Nice,” but it was hard to tell over the amplified expectoration being spewed through the phone line. It made one glad Ma Bell had perfected the resonance of their fiber-optic lines. As the huge conglomerate promised, they made your phone connection so real, it was like you were right next to each other. There’s a lot to be said for not being able to hear a pin drop. “You’re so smart, Craig. Just like your mother used to be.”

And there it was. She had to remind him of his antagonist. Had to bring her up. Janine knew he’d been trying so hard to forget about and ignore her—hence the blaring music to drown out her existence—and now she was right up there on his mind. Her mother was right, he was a smart boy, so Janine knew he’d make both of them pay with the one punishment he could inflict on both of them simultaneously. “I’ll go get her for you, Grandma,” he said before Janine heard him throw the phone down on his bed.

“Yeah, that’s it. Let ’em at each other. They deserve each other! I sure as hell don’t deserve either one of them, but they sure as hell deserve each other,” he muttered to himself as he stomped down the short hallway to her room. Her bedroom door was shut, so he didn’t see her leaning against it, her ear against the hollow door. “She’s working—all the more reason to disturb her—she hates to be interrupted when she’s working,” he said to himself with the pleasure of a nefarious villain who had a deliciously reprehensible plan. With what she could only imagine was an evil smile, he pounded on her door. “PHONE!” he shouted to it.

Head rattling, she called out, “Who is it?” while covering the mouthpiece of the phone tightly with one hand and her mouth with the other so she’d sound distant. Yes, she knew it was a juvenile move, but she did it anyhow.

“Yeah, right. Like I’m going to tell you. If I did, you’d beg me to tell her you were in the shower again. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that! A favor? Yeah, right. I don’t think so,” he mumbled to himself—yet was loud enough for an ear plastered to the door to hear—before she heard him clomp back to his room, slamming his door behind him for good measure.

She picked up her extension, clicking the button and pretending she didn’t know who was on the line. “Hello?”

“Oh, hello dear.”

“Hello, Mother,” she said with a definite lack of enthusiasm. Her son didn’t know how good he had it. He had no idea what it was like having a mother who was a pain in your ass. He may think she was a pain, but she was a poodle as compared to the old attack dog that was her mother.

“You must be working on one of your little books, because I called you three times this week, and you never returned my calls.” This was great. Just what she needed. Fighting with Craig, and now her mother was sticking it to her. But, you had to hand it to Mom. In one fell swoop she had insulted her profession, her writing, her manners, and her capacity as a daughter. All with that one short sentence. Her ex could learn a lot from her mother. At least her mother ragged her quickly and efficiently. Not like Martin. He was much more slow and laborious. Quite amateurish, actually. But after a lifetime with her mother, a seasoned insult comic would appear incompetent and amateurish.

“Sorry, Mother. I’m doing an edit. It’s hard for me to get interrupted. I need to keep focused so mistakes don’t happen.”

“What, like your little books are as important as brain surgery that you shouldn’t get interrupted? Or are you trying to imply that speaking to me is a mistake?” Damn, she was good. Either way, Janine looked like an idiot. In so many words—or rather, so few words—her mother had once again reinforced that her books were unimportant, her career was insignificant, and she sucked as a daughter. If it weren’t so exhausting—and directed at her—she’d probably find it impressive.

“No, Mother. I didn’t say that.”

“I don’t know how you make your living as a writer, when you can’t clearly explain yourself in a simple conversation.”

“Whoa, Granny. Pull in the reins! Even I think that one was a little rough, and currently I’m on the warpath with her almighty highness.”

Janine rubbed her temples and sighed. “Craig, get off the line, would you please?” She hadn’t realized he was listening, but as the saying went, what was good for the goose was good for the gander, so she couldn’t rightly say anything, could she? Plus, she really didn’t mind. She had nothing to hide. Particularly from her son.

When she heard the click of the phone, she assumed he had hung up. “Mother, I’ve had enough fighting for one day. Between Martin and Craig, I was at my limit before you called, and to be quite honest, I don’t have the energy or desire to contend with you right now. If you’d care to, you can try calling in a few days and hopefully by then I’ll be better equipped to handle your hostility.”

Her mother gasped.

“No offense, Mother,” she said as an afterthought.

After harrumphing better than a short, round Englishman wearing a monocle, she said, “How can I not be offended, Janine?”

With a heavy sigh, Janine said what she knew she’d have to say to get the older woman off her back. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m under a lot of stress lately. Please forgive me.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, thankful she was on the phone and not having this conversation in person while having to keep a straight face. She couldn’t have pulled it off if she had to do it face-to-face. As it were, she was smiling wickedly and the sparkle in her eye was a dead giveaway that she was not the least bit sorry.

Her mother’s phone call was long forgotten. The woman was a pain in the butt, but that wasn’t anything new. The minute she’d hung up, it was off her mind. This edit was important and she needed to finish it, so she’d worked all night. When Janine finally looked at her clock, she was surprised to see it was 2:23 a.m.

“Guess it’s time to call it a night,” she said to herself as she shut down her computer. The eerie light it had cast no longer illuminated the surrounding space, throwing her into total darkness. Taking a deep breath, she walked out of her room, not needing any light down the short hall toward Craig’s room. She’d done this a million times before.

A faint yellow band glowed from underneath his door, and she surmised that he’d fallen asleep with his light on again.

Opening the door slowly so it wouldn’t creak, she gazed at her son sprawled fully dressed across his bed. She crossed the room silently, thinking he looked like an angel in repose, and knelt beside the bed so she wouldn’t wake him. Carefully she untied the laces of his government-regulation black boots and gently tugged them off. God, his feet were huge. And they stank, too! Keeping those mammoth puppies penned up in those hot, festering, black leather encasements didn’t help matters. The boy’s feet needed air circulating around them.