Page 15 of Best Woman
The house I grew up in—or rather the house I spent my adolescence in after my mom married Randy when I was twelve—sits in a row of identical houses all the same sunburnt shade of pink stucco.
When I was growing up, the driveways were always empty, as the elderly residents of our neighborhood rarely used their equally elderly cars unless they were going to weekly doctor’s appointments, country club buffet lunches, or games of bridge.
Over the years, as they moved on and younger families moved in, those driveways have filled with SUVs and minivans, and now the once-quiet streets ring with the voices of children at play, their skin lit up by the bright Florida sun.
I, for one, preferred when it was all old people. Screaming children give me a headache.
It’s evening, and the street is mostly empty save for a few parents calling their kids home for dinner.
The light is burnt orange and deep blue and the air is warm and as thick as pudding, even in early November.
My mother pulls into the driveway, which is always left wide open for whatever angle she’s inventing that day.
Randy got sick of replacing his fender, so he parks in the garage.
“Do you need help bringing your things inside?” The question trails off as she opens the car door and walks toward the front of the house.
For some reason just being here, standing in the driveway where I used to sunbathe while the pool was being remodeled, looking out at a street that I could navigate in my sleep, has my chest tight with emotion.
Coming back here doesn’t always feel good or comfortable, but it always feels .
For the ten thousandth time, I shake my metaphorical fist at estrogen and how it opened the floodgates of my feelings.
Or maybe I’m just grown-up and self-aware. Ugh, gross.
Bags in tow, I stop to smell the gardenia bush on the way in. Randy gifted it to my mom when the twins were conceived, so I’m shocked it hasn’t spent the past fifteen years eating people like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors .
“Hi, Julia.” Speak of the devils.
Standing in the doorway are my fourteen-year-old half brothers, identical down to every last mole and freckle, their uncanny resemblance heightened to Kubrickian levels by their matching outfits.
My mom stopped dressing them the same when they were toddlers, but they started up again once they were old enough to pick out their clothes for themselves.
They dress like mini octogenarians, and for all I know their clothes are fished out of the donation piles left by our dearly departed neighbors.
Or possibly stolen directly from their corpses.
“Hey, guys.”
“Can we help with your bags?” Not once in their lives have I been able to tell them apart, but I think it’s Brian who offers.
“Sure,” I answer, handing them over, “although I don’t have cash for a tip.”
They stare, unblinking, and turn away to lead me upstairs.
True to Mom’s mercurial tastes, the house is full of new furniture, art, and tchotchkes, but it’s still the house I grew up in.
We cross through the large open foyer and past the living room, with its gigantic flat screen and overstuffed leather couches, and up the staircase, which was carpeted this time last year but is now paneled in warm wood and leads to scattered accent rugs.
When I was twelve, I kicked Aiden down these very stairs and was grounded for a week. Ah, youth.
The house around them has changed, but the photos hung along the wall are the same, and my own face stares back at me from several of them.
There I am next to Mickey Mouse at Disney, barely reaching his knee, ice cream melting in my hand.
There I am singing my solo in a middle school production of Annie, the only boy at Miss Hannigan’s orphanage.
There I am next to my mom on the day of my bar mitzvah, smiling through a mouthful of braces, though I can remember vividly how itchy and uncomfortable I felt in my Men’s Wearhouse suit.
Maybe the discomfort is something only I can see. If anyone else could, these pictures probably wouldn’t still be hanging on the wall.
The twins deposit my things in the beige guest bedroom I spent my teen years locked inside, listening to The Smiths, feeling misunderstood.
“Our mouse got loose last week,” says one of the demon spawn.
“It died in this room,” says the other. “We haven’t found it yet.”
“Perfect,” I sigh, heaving my bags onto the bed and starting to unpack.
If my clothes weren’t put away within twenty minutes of my arrival, my mother would disown me, and River gave very strict instructions about the care of Hannah G’s pilfered couture; when I told them I didn’t own a garment bag, I’m pretty sure River popped a few blood vessels in their eye.
“I don’t smell anything, so we should be fine. ”
“Do you want to come hang out in our room? We have a PlayStation now,” says Thing One.
“And a rotary saw,” adds Thing Two.
“Maybe later. I need to lie down for a bit.”
They nod in unison and leave the room on silent feet. Creepy little fuckers. I love them.
Later, I find Mom in the kitchen drinking a Diet Coke and watching the news.
My mother, for all her Pilates and flowy linen outfits, is not very healthy.
She “doesn’t drink water,” having always claimed to not like the taste.
She will only drink Diet Coke, and not even out of the can: every morning, she goes to the McDonald’s drive-thru to buy a fountain Diet Coke and slowly sips it for the rest of the day.
Thank god she has veneers and a stomach hardened by my grandma’s abysmal cooking.
“Are you hungry, sweetie?” She opens the fridge. “We’ve got hummus, cheese sticks, strawberries, yogurt. There’s some brisket from Passover in the freezer I could heat up for you.”
“Passover was six months ago. But thanks. Where’s Randy?”
“He’s at Costco,” she says, rolling her eyes.
As far as I know, my stepfather spends thirty percent of his life at Costco.
The remaining seventy percent is divided into making googly eyes at my mother, watching CNN, playing golf, and being late to every appointment, dinner reservation, and family function possible.
I’m pretty sure the main reason he and my mom fell in love was their mutual love of procrastination.
Also, they have sex loudly and always seem to be enjoying themselves.
Mom met Randy just a year after she and Dad got divorced.
She was a hot young single mother with two kids and liked to power walk through the neighborhood, and Randy was the lifelong bachelor who lived down the street and would stare through the window to watch her pass by and ogle her spandex-clad ass.
They were married within a year, and we all moved into this house, my mom cheerfully sending Randy’s black leather couches to Goodwill and sending Aiden and me off to sleepaway camp so the newlyweds could fuck their way across Europe every summer.
A few years later the twins were born, and as much as my mom tried to make us a neat little family unit, this always felt like that family’s house, one I just happened to live in.
I’m more comfortable now as a visitor than I ever was as a resident.
I steal a sip of Mom’s Diet Coke, which is mostly melted ice at this point. “That’s disgusting.”
“So are your shoes,” she counters, eyes on her phone. “We’ll go to the mall tomorrow and get you a new pair. You cannot wear those to the club.”
“I did bring another pair, you know. It’s not like I was planning to wear these to the rehearsal dinner.”
“Well, what are you wearing to the rehearsal dinner?” I’ve fallen neatly into her trap. “You’ve been so cagey.”
“It’s mostly to avoid prosecution. River helped themselves to a few things from Hannah G’s closet and let me borrow them.”
Mom gasped. “Oh, I love Hannah G. That one song is always playing in Publix. What’s it called, it’s the one with that chorus that goes like, hm hm hmmm hm hm .
” I’ve gotta admit, she has good taste. That Hannah G song was one of my most-listened-to songs three years ago, meaning it’s just the right time for it to go triple platinum in a Florida grocery chain.
We stand around the kitchen island gossiping for a bit, Mom filling me in on the latest drama with her friend group.
This summer they went on a Mediterranean cruise and one of them almost fell off the boat in an incident involving too many margaritas and a broken flip-flop.
In turn, I catch her up on work, showing her photos on my phone of Everett’s new brownstone, which she oohs and aahs at, insisting that one day I’ll have a home just as nice. And the nice thing is, she believes it.
An hour of chatting later, I check my phone.
I’m home, come by whenever :)
“I’m going out,” I say, wondering where I can possibly pretend to go on a Sunday night in Boca Raton. “I forgot to bring toothpaste, I’m going to run to Publix.”
She hands over her keys without question. “Can you grab me another Diet Coke while you’re out?” Even if she’s asleep when I get back, she’ll drink it first thing in the morning. I send a text back.
Same address?
I haven’t even pulled out of the driveway when the response comes in, blown up on my mom’s navigation system, where I’ve connected my phone.
Yup, writes Ben Otsuka. See you soon.