Test Patterns

My mother likes to analyze people, especially celebrities. She’s read every People magazine; and takes in all the entertainment news shows, so she can eventually pick out the one fatal flaw that—in her eyes—makes these mega-stars less appealing and, thus, inferior.

Here I am sitting with her in the living room watching TV, her favorite pastime. Mom is a part-time claim examiner who works in the mornings so she can catch her shows in the afternoon. I moved back home three months ago when I lost my job and my boyfriend in the same week.

“What am I going to do,” I cried over the phone. “Nathan moved out and I can’t pay the rent.”

“Come home” she said. “There’s plenty of room here.”

So at 26, I moved back home and found some work with a temporary agency. I answer phones, enter data, file paper, put sales packets together and go home so drained by boredom that I end up on the couch watching TV with my mom.

“Dan Rather is strange,” she says. “ Look at him staring into the camera. He doesn’t even blink. He’s as rigid as a robot. What’s wrong with him?”

“Dan Rather is fine,” I say. “He’s been around for years. He must be doing something right.”

I encourage her to do something more with her life. “Get away from that TV. Read a book, go to the gym, take a trip, join a single’s group.”

But she always has an excuse.

“I’m almost 60,” she’ll say. “I’m too old. What good would it do to change now?”

I PAGE THROUGH the photo album and see my mom’s history laid out in black and white. There she is at 18, a chubby-cheeked beauty in a white dress looking over her shoulder like a movie star. Her black hair is pulled back from her face by a thick white band. Her flirtatious smile is framed by lips so red, they look black in the photo.

In another, she is walking toward the camera with two friends, their arms linked together and laughing at some joke between them. It was taken on the streets of New York when she was 21 and on a two-week vacation she’d been planning since she was 15.

The next one shows her getting married at city hall. Slimmed down and unsmiling, she hangs on to my father’s arm as if she needs steadying. My father must have looked away just as the shutter clicked, because his face is a blur. I squint, trying to pick out his features, but I can’t; so his image has settled in my mind as a smudge of grays and whites.

“I met him on a blind date,” mom says. “A friend fixed me up. Worst thing that ever happened.”

When my mother’s parents were killed in a car crash, the newlyweds inherited her childhood home. It’s a two story brick building in a once-proud neighborhood that is slowly collapsing around her.

My mother refuses to move, however. “It’s part of my life,” she says. “Where would I go?” For me this is a house of silence, with a father who once floated through its rooms like a ghost trying hard not to be seen. When he got home from work, he’d disappear into the basement and sit frozen in front of the TV for most of the night. He rarely talked and when he did, his voice burned with contempt and an anger he could barely suppress.

He left for work one Friday morning when I was five years old. We never saw him again.

I’M TRYING TO GET OUTSIDE as often as I can. I take long walks to clear out my head and to figure out what I’m doing here.

I walk by the high school football field and watch players practicing for Friday night’s game. I remember going to those games as a pudgy sophomore, longing for Mark Levitt, the quarterback, and convinced that when he looked into the bleachers, he was looking for me.

I pass the Cinderbox Café where seniors hung out after school, talking tough and trying to look worldly as we sipped coffee and smoked cigarettes. My best friend, Cindy, was the toughest one of all. She went to an all-girl’s school and was president of her class, and, thanks to a scholarship, destined for medical school. Looking sweet and demure in her school uniform, she’d plop down in our booth and promptly stun us with her self-confidence and dirty mouth.

She caught the eye of Judd Mahoney, a math wiz, who worked hard to dazzle her with his wit and intelligence. They went out a few times, but Cindy wasn’t interested in a full-time boyfriend.

“He’s too intense,” she told me. “I’d rather stay home and read a good book.”

My mom said Cindy was a snob and tried to discourage our friendship. When our telephone calls lasted too long, she’d yell up at me to “get off the damn phone. You’ve got better things to do. Someone may be trying to reach us.”

I didn’t see Cindy during Christmas vacation, so when we finally met up after New Year’s, I was stunned by how much she had changed. Naturally thin, her body was now skeletal. Her ivory skin was a mottled pink, her shining hair a dirty brown. Once mouthy and flamboyant, Cindy was now modest and shy.

“Cindy. What’s going on? Something’s wrong.”

She continued to jab at her Coke with the straw, avoiding my eyes.

“It’s okay. Tell me what happened.”

“You’re going to hate me.”

“No way. That’s not going to happen.”

She looked up, her face contorted as she fought for control.

“I haven’t told anyone. My mom doesn’t even know.”

I waited.

“I had an abortion.”

I could barely breathe. “When?”

“Last week. I cashed in my savings bond. It was over in 30 minutes. Thirty minutes, can you imagine?”

She fought back tears.

Slowly, the story emerged: It was Judd’s fault. He refused to wear a rubber. The nuns will find out and throw her out of school. She would lose the scholarship. She would never get into medical school. It would break her mother’s heart.

“You’re the only one who knows. You can’t tell anyone,” she begged. “You can’t.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “I won’t.”

But I did. Cindy’s secret was too big to keep. I had to share it with someone. So I told my mom while we were watching the evening news.

“You did the right thing,” she said. “She acts like such a big shot, and she’s nothing but a tramp. I told you that. Now stay away from her.”

A few weeks later, Cindy was expelled from school. The principal told her she had murdered an innocent baby and had shamed her family and the church. It seems a concerned parishioner had called in to notify the school of her immoral behavior.

I knew it was my mom. And so did Cindy.

She stopped talking to me after that. She ignored my calls and returned my letters unopened. After getting her GED, she moved out of the state and I never saw her again. Someone told me she worked as a medical assistant for some big HMO. At 21 she married an accountant. The last I heard, Cindy had two kids and was living in Akron.

NATHAN CALLS FROM DENVER to ask how I’m doing.

“What do you think,” I reply. “How would you feel if someone walked out on you?”

“It’s hard for me too. But you know we weren’t good for each other.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I ask about Beth, the coworker he now lives with. “At least she likes you,” I say.

“At least you tried to,” he laughs. “You did your best. Besides, she’s out of town for two weeks.”

“Aha! So that’s why you called. When the cat’s away?”

He caught an early morning flight and was knocking on our door by noon the next day. Nathan is not much to look at. He’s my height, pale, skinny and balding. Friends asked what I saw in him, and I’d simply say he was rich and hung like a horse. They’d laugh, assuming we were attracted to each other in ways they didn’t even want to understand.

Nor did I, really. He simply fit into my life at the moment and that was enough. His comfortable presence took the edge off living alone; and his warm body got me through some long cold nights.

It turns out my mother likes him. “You look like a young Woody Allen,” she says.

He says she looks like Mia Farrow. “Where are you hiding all your kids? Where is my Soon Yi?” She laughs and tells him he’s sleeping in the spare room downstairs, and—blushing—that he better behave himself.

Nathan and I spend the afternoon at the movies, then stop at Dagwood’s for some pre-dinner drinks. We are awkward with each other until he pulls the waitress into our conversation. She is full of jokes and laughter and has some time to fool around with her customers. With the focus now on her, I can relax and figure out what this weekend is all about.

Mom cooks a big turkey dinner. “Ben and Jennifer cancelled their wedding,” she tells us while passing the gravy. “You don’t do that unless something is seriously wrong. I think it’s a power struggle. Ben wants to wear the pants and she won’t let him. Millions of dollars wasted. Imagine how many babies a million dollars can feed.”

Afterward, we munch on popcorn while watching Cops and America’s Most Wanted. Then mom slips in a video showing Julia Roberts wooing and winning Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. As the credits role, she shoos us off to bed.

“Go on,” she says. “I’ll clean up here. Extra blankets are in the closet,” she tells Nathan, watching me closely to make sure I’m heading for the stairs.

When I’m sure she’s asleep, I sneak back downstairs into Nathan’s room. He welcomes me wordlessly by holding up the covers and letting me slip into the warmth of his arms. We are soon naked and melded and moving rhythmically to a dance that is familiar and safe. I am riding a sleek silver pole that is taking me up to the sun where I explode in flames and then slowly float down to a warm wet bed.

Later, I get up to leave but he pulls me back.

“Stay,” he says. “Sleep with me.”

He gnaws at my ear, my neck, my breasts. I pull him into me and we make love again before falling asleep. In the morning, Mom wakes us up by rattling around in the kitchen. We lay in bed, holding our breaths, like two crooks hiding from the cops.

When her car leaves, I tell him she’s going to church and afterwards she’ll have breakfast with a friend. Then she’ll shop for groceries. She won’t be back until one or two. It’s the same every Sunday.

“You have to get out of this house,” he says. “Something’s wrong. I feel like I can’t breathe here. I can only imagine what it’s like for you.”

“She’s my mom. She’s all alone. I’m all she has.”

“But you have to live your own life. It’s not your job to make her happy.”

We lay side by side, watching the sun move across the room. Soon we are making love, knowing it’s for the last time. He will be leaving me soon without regret. So I come with a sorrowful cry and am warmed as he holds me in his arms.

MY MOM HAD ONLY TWO BOYFRIENDS after my father left. One was Jake, an analyst at the insurance company they both worked for. He phoned our house almost every week, a soft-spoken man trying hard to hide the eagerness in his voice. Sometimes she would take his calls, but mostly she’d make me answer and then, waving her arms, mouth, “I’m not home. Tell him I’m not home.”

Jake’s doggedness wore her down. So one night he came knocking at our door with flowers and a set smile, trying hard to charm the daughter.

“I hear you’re in 6^th grade,” he said in a voice so soft I could barely hear him. “How do you like school?”

“Fine.”

“Got any boyfriends yet?”

“No,” I emphasized.

“Well you will, a pretty girl like you.”

Seeing I could not be won over, he settled into silence and waited for mom to make her entrance. When she did, Jake snapped to her side like a magnet to steel. His smile lost its tension and he couldn’t stop looking at her with his cocker-spaniel eyes.

My mother was in her 40s, and still attractive. She had her hair and nails done every week and put on makeup every morning. Her dresses were basic blacks and beiges, but she accessorized them with colorful scarves and chunky jewelry. Such flamboyance attracted attention, but her aloofness soon turned people away.

Jake figured a woman who took good care of herself would take good care of him. But he figured wrong.

“He reminds me of John Lithgrow,” she told me. “And I can’t stand John Lithgrow. He’s a wimp.”

Her next boyfriend didn’t enter our lives until I was 16. Mom met him at a bar and brought him home at two in the morning. His name was Alfredo.

I heard them stumbling up the stairs as they shushed each other and, with giggles, shut her bedroom door.

Next morning I met her in the kitchen.

“He couldn’t stay,” she told me, pouring cream into her coffee with shaky hands. He had to go home and get some sleep. He came from Rome and works as a waiter. He’d been in the movies for awhile. “Remember Cleopatra?” she asked. “Alfredo was one of the stuntman. You should feel his biceps. They’re as hard as rocks.”

A few times after that, the phone would ring in the middle of the night, soon followed by Alfredo’s heavy footsteps climbing our stairs. And every morning he was gone.

Then one Sunday afternoon Alfredo came for dinner. He was in his 40s and had the fading good looks of an Omar Sharif. But his dark eyes shone with an artificial light and his fake smile got bigger when he saw you were uncomfortable. I could tell he didn’t want to be here; so mom did most of the talking, thinking her chatter would keep him in that chair for awhile.

I left the table as soon as I could and went back to my room, plugging in my earphones to zone out on Duran Duran. But then I looked up and saw Alfredo standing in the doorway. His eyes were dancing as he stared at me for awhile.

“Need anything?” he purred.

I backed up into the headboard, hugging my pillow. “The bathroom is right next door,” I yelled, hoping my mom would hear.

His smile grew wider as he turned to go.

Later that night my mom kicked him out. She’s been alone ever since.

NATHAN HAS BEEN GONE AN HOUR when mom comes home from church. She avoids my eyes as I help her unpack the groceries. Neither of us speaks. I go for a walk and breathe in the cool fall air, crunching dead leaves with heavy feet. The house is dark when I come home except for a TV light flickering in the living room window.

We watch Mike Wallace as he antagonizes Shirley MacLaine on a 60 Minutes rerun.

“Look at him,” mom says. “He should be in a nursing home and not on prime time TV. He should retire. What’s he afraid of? Death?”

I close my bedroom door without turning on the light, absorbing the darkness and finding peace in its shadows. I pull out my suitcase and pack my clothes. Then I sit on the bed, waiting for the night to settle in. When I’m sure my mom is asleep, I get up to leave. I walk through the house without looking back and then quietly close the front door.

It locks with a click and a sigh, and I’m left standing alone in the cold night air.