Page 13 of Best Woman
The oppressive Florida humidity settles directly under my ( itty bitty, Daytona’s voice in my head supplies) breasts as soon as the automatic airport doors slide open. I should’ve worn a bra. My phone buzzes, mother! flashing on the screen.
“Hi, sweetie. Are you outside?” Bon Jovi is blasting at full volume in the background. Mom likes to multitask.
“Yeah, I’m standing under the Delta sign. The second one.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Of course.
Dana Esterman is perpetually twenty minutes late.
In middle school, I set the clock in her car back in an attempt to trick her into punctuality, but all it did was assure her that she had more time to dawdle.
Thanks to her, I am chronically fifteen minutes early to every dinner, date, and doctor’s appointment out of pure spite and lingering trauma.
I charge my phone inside and send my saucy selfie to our group chat, Diva Coalition.
River sends back an answering ass shot. Kyle sends a meme of such esoteric humor it’s funnier without context.
Daytona, who checks her phone maybe once every four days and mutes every group chat the moment she’s added to it, does not reply.
Here, Mom texts. I drag my battered luggage through the automatic doors and there she is, standing next to her neat little sedan, completely ignoring the traffic guard loudly insisting she actually can’t park there.
My mother is five foot two and about a third of that is an intricately highlighted blond blowout.
She’s dressed like something straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie, all cream-colored, loose-fitting linen and expensive jewelry.
Her skin is aggressively tan and freckled from the sun—I don’t think she’s ever applied sunscreen in her life, no matter how often her dermatologist insists she’s going to wind up with skin the texture of a Louis Vuitton bag.
She still looks like Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club on a good day, and today is a very good day.
She holds out her arms to wrap around me.
“My baby!” Her head—well, hair—reaches my neck.
She smells like Big Red gum, vanilla coffee creamer, unleaded gas, and gardenias.
She pulls back to rake sharp eyes over me, her eyes— my eyes —warm and welcoming.
I realize, suddenly, how much I’ve missed her.
“I can’t believe you’re not wearing a bra.”
Well, maybe not that much. “Good to see you too, Mom.”
“Do you need help with your suitcase?” she asks, already climbing into the driver’s seat, as if my carry-on doesn’t weigh more than she does and as if she’d risk an acrylic nail attempting to lift it.
She does, however, pop the trunk, alarmingly full of Nordstrom shopping bags, which in turn are full of things she’s bought and likely never even taken out of the car.
In six months she’ll remember they’re in there, return everything, and buy another trunkful of shopping bags she’ll return six months after that .
In my tote bag is a wallet stuffed with every receipt I’ve acquired over the past six months, meticulously indexed and alphabetized. It’s funny how we are either a reflection of or reaction to our parents.
Inside the car, Pearl Jam Radio is playing on SiriusXM. I drop into my seat, exhausted from a day of traveling and the four parties River dragged me to last night. My mom looks over at me, smiling sweetly. Something inside me that’s been knotted up for months unclenches.
“How was the flight?”
“It was fine. I watched movies and slept.”
“Good, you look tired.”
“Thanks.”
As it has for the past twenty-nine years, the sarcasm completely escapes her attention—yes, I was even a sarcastic baby. There are photos to prove it.
“I’m so happy you’re home, my honeybun. Watch where you’re going, motherfucker! ” She honks at an SUV that has made the crucial error of being in a lane she wanted to enter. “Brody and Brian are so excited to see you!”
“Why, do they need a body for an autopsy?”
“Don’t talk about your brothers like that! They’re very sweet boys.”
On the day of their b’nai mitzvah, Rabbi Hoffman had cried in front of the entire synagogue when my brothers finished their haftarah portions.
Everyone chalked it up to pride at their accomplishment, but I’m guessing it was a mixture of terror and relief after three months of private lessons.
They probably visited him in his dreams to tell him the exact hour and manner of his death.
“The guest bedroom is all made up for you. You’re going to love what we did with the bathroom.”
“Didn’t you redo the bathroom last year? I distinctly remember you referring to it as Under the Tuscan Sun chic.” However, in reality, the aesthetic was decidedly Olive Garden.
“Well, it turns out Tuscany isn’t as chic as it used to be. We decided to go a bit more Spanish. The tile is to die for.”
I turn down the radio, which is still at an earsplitting decibel. “I can’t wait to see what country you journey to next year. I’ll get my passport renewed.”
We’re soaring up I-95 approximately twenty miles over the speed limit, weaving in and out of traffic like this is an action movie and a shady government organization is after us.
An air freshener in the shape of a hamsa—which likely hasn’t smelled like jasmine since 2003—hangs from the rearview mirror, and a McDonald’s cup with an inch of watery iced Diet Coke sits in the cup holder.
“I’ll leave you my car tomorrow if you want, but I’ll need you to pick my rehearsal dinner dress up from the dry cleaner’s and get the boys from school.
We’re having dinner with Grandma and Grandpa tomorrow night, so you’ll be able to see them before all the wedding festivities kick off.
Grandpa is feeling much better, by the way. ”
“Was he not feeling well?”
“Honestly, Julia, you hardly ever call me, you could at least pay attention when I manage to get you on the phone.” She isn’t wrong that I tend to zone out, but she can go long about the weather, which in South Florida is some constant combination of hot and wet for eleven months of the year.
“Did you bring enough socks with you? I can have Randy pick you up a pack from Costco.”
“I brought plenty of socks, Mom.” Already I can feel myself becoming sulky and whiny. Within under twenty-four hours of being in the same zip code as my mother, I will have fully regressed to fifteen years old.
My mother narrowly escapes causing a five-car pileup as she plows across three lanes to make our exit. “Have you talked to your father?”
“Yes, I once asked him to pass the ketchup at an Outback Steakhouse in 1997.”
“Very funny, Julia. I mean, have you talked to him recently ?”
I heave an imitation of her long-suffering sigh back at her, something I perfected before hitting puberty. “I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks.”
“You should call him more often, honey. He’s your father.”
“Hey, you’re the one who married him.”
I can’t remember a time when my parents were happily married, but they must have been at some point, because once the post-divorce dust settled, Mom always insisted I try harder to get along with Dad, despite our mutual ambivalence toward each other.
Still, I could tell she secretly liked that I preferred her, and her insistence that I have a better relationship with my father was more about some deference to proper parental respect.
We’re stopped at a red light, and my mother turns to look at me.
No matter how old I get, no matter how much I learn and grow and change, no matter how different the person I become is from the one whose diapers she once changed, this woman retains the uncanny ability to take one look at me and know exactly what I’m thinking.
Is this a special kind of telepathy intrinsic to motherhood, or is Dana just supernaturally snoopy?
“I’m so happy you’re here. All my babies are in one place, and one of them is getting married !”
She honest-to-god pinches my cheek. “You know how much I love you, sweetie.”
Embarrassingly, my throat tightens and tears prick my eyes. “I know, Mom. I lo—”
Honk! “THE LIGHT’S GREEN, JERK-OFF!”