Page 41 of Good Days Bad Days

Charlie

Present Day

Standing in a retro kitchen set, my mother speaks to the camera with poise and charisma. In each episode she wears a stiff white apron and is in flawless hair and makeup as she teaches women how to be the perfect housewife.

Lacey gasps and clenches my hand within the first five minutes of the show.

“Your mom was hot.”

Lacey and Cam have only seen the scary version of my mom.

She never let people inside our house when I was a kid and discouraged friendships with other children.

Once I was removed from the house, the town was left dealing with her.

Lacey hasn’t been tactful in her retellings of my mother’s interactions with the local police, the health department, and Code Enforcement.

This view of Betty must be just as much of a shock for them as it is for me.

“Yeah. Yeah, she was,” I agree, not as stunned as Lacey by my mother’s beauty, but totally hypnotized by her camera presence.

Although The Classy Homemaker book struck me as a hilarious irony, the films make me a believer.

She’s convincing, she’s enthralling. And though she seems like a stranger to the three of us, I feel like I’ve been getting to know the woman on the screen—getting to know that Betty.

“She knows how to talk to a camera,” Cam says as the film rewinds at the end of the episode. “Or like, through a camera. Reminds me of you on your show.”

Lacey agrees, repeating his assessment but with more words. As much as I usually hate being compared to the woman who screwed up the first few decades of my life, I definitely don’t hate being compared to Betty Wilkens.

“Wait.” I look at Cam with a raised eyebrow. “How would you even know that? You supposedly haven’t seen my show.”

Cam shakes his head, grinning like he’s been caught. “I mean, I hadn’t seen it, but that’s since changed,” he admits.

“In like a day? You little stalker,” I say, carefully removing the delicate film and replacing it with another one.

“A little friendly stalking is normal, I think,” Lacey interjects, curling up under a fleece blanket.

“Especially when you find out your high school ex is a full-on TV star.” I squirm at the “star” label but let it go, knowing Cam probably streamed a couple episodes of Second Chance Renovation after meeting my costar in person yesterday.

“Fair,” I say, flicking the projector’s motor back on. It starts with a whir, and I hop into the open spot between my two friends, my knee lightly brushing Cam’s every time one of us shifts positions.

That’s where Olivia finds us when Ian drops her off without coming inside, much to Lacey’s chagrin.

She holds a Styrofoam to-go container, explaining it contains a dinner Ian bought in case I didn’t have a chance to eat.

In her other hand is a piece of carrot cake, my favorite.

I put the meal in the fridge next to our Thai leftovers and bring the cake to the couch with four forks.

“Join us?” I ask, after introducing Lacey and Olivia, pointing to the makeshift movie screen. She glances at me and then at Cam and finally at the carrot cake.

“I think I’m good,” she says, retreating to her room. I shrug at my friends, and Lacey says something about teenagers as she takes the first bite of the newly delivered dessert.

The rest of the night grows fuzzy as fatigue pulls at my eyelids. Soon, with Cam already snoring lightly next to me, Lacey excuses herself just past midnight, and almost immediately after, I also surrender to sleep.

Some unknown number of hours later, I awake to Cam sitting beside me, a gentle hand on my shoulder.

As the fuzziness clears from my eyes and head, I squint at the glowing numbers on the microwave clock.

It’s 3:00 a.m. I gasp and sit up, pushing off the fleece blanket Lacey placed over me when she left.

“How long have I been asleep?”

Cam laughs. “Only a little longer than I have.”

His hip presses into my side, and the light scent of his woody cologne lingers in the air between us.

The ambient light from the projector hits his iris at an angle, highlighting the brown freckles.

He rubs his lips together, and I half expect him to finish what we started on the front porch last night.

“You should stay over. It’s too late to leave.” I prop myself up and then clarify quickly, thinking of Olivia in the other room. “The couch is comfy.”

“As tempting as that sounds,” he says, giving me a small, rueful smile and shaking his head, “I have work in the morning, so I should go.”

“I get it. You have important teeth business.”

His head bobs, but he doesn’t leave immediately.

He has that look again from last night, like he wants to pull me to him and kiss me with the pent-up passion of a heartbreak that’s been marinating for thirty-one years.

His touch would be eager, his mouth hungry; we’d be back in the hammock on the peninsula, but this time as adults who know what comes after the thrill of a deep, meaningful kiss.

I shift in my seat and the moment passes—again.

He gathers his few belongings and starts tidying the room. I shoo him away, reminding him of the time. I don’t stand, we don’t embrace. He leaves, and I collapse into the cushion, tossing the blanket over my head, imagining what could’ve happened if either one of us were slightly less pragmatic.

Emerging from my fleece bubble of shame once I’m sure he’s gone, I collect the glasses and bowl of half-eaten popcorn, flicking on the last of the film already threaded in the projector.

Betty’s voice fills the room, starting a new Classy Homemaker episode with her cheerful greeting to the audience and a wave to the camera, calling, “Welcome home!”

As she lists the topics for the day, I notice a theme: how to make old lace look new, the proper neckline and hemline for each age of bride and type of wedding, the rules of etiquette for who and who not to invite to your wedding, pine cone centerpieces, the must-have household items for your wedding registry, and a step-by-step guide to arranging silk flower bouquets.

I imagine what my parents’ wedding must’ve looked like.

I’ve only found the one picture of my mom in her wedding dress, and after showing it to her I put it on the fridge.

I made ten copies and passed them out to the clearing crew with the hopes of finding the wedding dress among the hoard, but so far, no luck.

My mom once told me she and Dad were married in the backyard of our house, on the dock, with flower petals floating in the water. At one time I dreamed of a similar ceremony, maybe on an early summer night when the city had fireworks over the lake.

As Betty arranges white pine cones in circles large enough to fit tall pillar candles that she’d made on a previous episode, I wash the dishes, wipe down the counters, fold the throw blankets, and fluff the pillows.

Betty’s hair is shorter in this episode.

Her long red nails collect bits of the sparkles as she dusts them onto the wet pine cones, which makes me think of the twelve bins filled with sticks and rocks that we recently removed from the house.

In an earlier episode she had used cardboard toilet paper rolls to make Halloween ghost party favors, which explained the twenty or so garbage bags of empty cardboard paper towel rolls and toilet paper tubes in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

It doesn’t explain the whole hoard, that’s for sure, but some part of my brain calms every time I find a clue to my mother’s way of thinking.

It’s not completely unlike how my father saved and sold antiques, found value in the old or even ancient.

Others often paid a hefty price for those treasures.

My mother also valued old things, the difference being that no one else could see their worth.

It’s a little like what we do on my show with old houses, and if I try hard enough, I can find something noble about my mother’s perspective, relatable.

“Ugh.” I shudder at yet another similarity between me and my mother. I need to get to bed and away from the flattened image of Betty projected onto the living room wall.

I wipe down the sink and dry my hands on the dish towel, watching as The Classy Homemaker episode comes to a close. Betty holds up her finished project, and I’m impressed at how fashionable it looks, like evergreen trees covered in sparkling snow.

That’s when I notice something. In every other episode I watched, Betty’s small, nimble fingers were bare, but in this episode, she’s wearing a large diamond ring on her left ring finger that I’ve never seen before.

Hm. I rewind the film and play it again at a slower speed.

The image isn’t the best quality, but I’m fairly certain it isn’t my mother’s wedding ring, at least not the one she’s worn my whole life—the one she wears now.

Surely it doesn’t mean anything. This episode is from the second season, but my parents weren’t married until 1976.

The ring could be part of her wardrobe, a strategic decision to make her look like a married homemaker instead of a single girl playing house.

But then again . . . I step closer to the projected image.

There’s something familiar about that ring.

It sends an unsettled chill through me. I remember where I’ve seen it before.

I take down the wedding portrait from the freezer door and examine the details closely.

Young Betty is wearing a lace and chiffon dress, her hair elegantly pinned in a twist, and her cathedral-length veil cascades down her back.

Next to her, I now realize, is a silk flower arrangement like the one she’s constructing in The Classy Homemaker episode.

But . . . the ring. I bring the yellowed photograph over to the image on the wall and hold it up in the light.

The rings match.

I turn the photo over, looking for any clues I may have missed.

Could this be a promotional photo from the show?

But when Betty looked at it weeks ago she said it was a picture from her wedding day, which was supposedly in 1976, not 1971 when this episode was filmed.

Maybe Betty remembered wrong, or they were engaged for longer than I’d been told or maybe were married a different year.

Maybe she lost the ring or sold it. There are plenty of rational explanations, but all of them would mean my parents had lied about some part of their love story. Why would they lie?

The question reverberates through my mind as I shut down the projector for the night.

There’s literally no reason to lie about their wedding date, I think over and over again as I climb into bed. Then again, if there’s no reason to lie then there’s also no harm in double-checking. I take out my phone, set an early alarm, and send one last text to Cam.

Charlie: I need you to do me another favor.