Requested by Bighead98. Enjoy.
You look like sisters, Tiffany remembered her boyfriend telling her as he struggled to keep his mouth closed at the sight of her mother moving in time to the Zumba video on the TV in the living room while clad in training bra and yoga pants. Not that it changes anything, he quickly added when she turned her baleful gaze upon him. But when he recognized her from her online videos, well, things went from being humorously uncanny to painfully awkward. It made Tiffany wish for the umpteenth time that her mother was like everyone else's mother. Someone who was a kindergarten teacher, a lawyer or a journalist for a living. Someone who was nearing forty but not pretending she was still on the cusp of thirty, looking like she was twenty and behaving like she was ten after some wine and a night out on the town. Someone who the internet community didn't know as the famous Jessie "Jizz" Mayes.
After relinquishing her coat to the doorman, Tiffany strode into the lounge bar with her high heels clicking against the colored stone, feeling painfully out of her league as eyes flitted her way. Some establishments are restricted to those with the income. Others to those with the right appearance. The last time the university student was in such a setting and in anything resembling the black halter dress she was wearing was during the high school prom and at the arm of the football middle linebacker. Not team captain. Her friend had her claws in him at the time. Probably because he would often come to class smelling of fumes, sit in his seat and stare at the ceiling with its cracks and mildew and smile goofily as if he just solved one of life's mysteries. Go figure.
She scanned the room till she saw her. It didn't take much. Just needed to follow the laughter. Mother has always been the life of the party. Most people eventually grow up. Others never do.
"And I replied: yes of course I know how to play his organ!"
More laughter. Loud, drunk, fake and genuine all alike. Tiffany wished she had the wrong place. They should be in opposite positions. She should be the woman over there sitting between the fascinated hanger-ons and toadies while her overprotective mom stumbles over to drive them off. Just wasn't normal. Just wasn't fair.
Tiffany adjusted her handbag over her shoulder and stepped towards the front of the table. She stopped and waited till their conversation slowly fell to a hush as people noticed her. Jessica certainly looked like she was having fun. She was sharing gazes with a man in a polo shirt who smelt acutely of cologne. Then man glanced her way and stopped in mid-speech. "Are you looking for someone?"
Tiffany nodded. "Found her too." He was definitely a looker, but he also looked sleazy despite his loafers and barber haircut, and he put her in mind of the kind of man who could pass for late teens or early adolescence but was probably much older than that. Tiffany has seen his type before, hanging around nightclubs crowds and slipping into high school parties, grinding against the underage girls and possibly passing around the dance pills and every other kind of pill except for the contraceptive. Certainly a breed of predator who never grew out of a desire for carnal delights.
The man blinked, and glanced at Jessica, who had now noticed but her daughter, but was remaining reticient. "You never told us you had a sister," he remarked as he returned his gaze to Tiffany, studying her keenly and drinking in the sight.
"Actually she's my mom," Tiffany replied before Jessica could open her mouth.
The man's smile wavered, the confusion and then the understanding settling upon his face as he glanced between the two blondes, the other people following suit.
Mom. That one word can be as frightening as a silver stake smelling of garlic was to vampires. When adults were kids, "I'll tell your mom" was the equivalent of "I'll sue you."
Jessica smiled. "Gentlemen," she declared. "It's getting late, and I'm afraid my chaperone has arrived. If you would all be so kind?"
Hurried footsteps, hasty goodbyes and muttered best wishes. Tiffany kept her eyes on her mother, hoping she wasn't flushing.
"When you say you're single," Jessie murmured as she watched everyone give them space, "They come flocking in droves like shoppers to Walmart on Black Friday. But say you're a single mother and, well, you know how it is. Commitment; that's what separates the men from the boys." She gestured. "But I don't suppose you came here just to see me?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," Tiffany retorted, and regretted the words as something ever so slightly tightened in her mother's face. But this was how it had always been between them. Ever since Tiffany started living near campus. Ever since she stopped answering her mother's calls for a while.
"Alright then," Jessie replied, narrowing her eyes at her glass as she swirled its contents of golden water and ice. "Don't keep me suspense. Come on, sit down. My neck's hurting just trying to look up at you."
Tiffany grimaced and settled herself down opposite her mother, trying to keep her hands away from the table with its pools of spilt alcohols and ashes from stray cigarette. She watched as her mother drained her glass in one go, noting how her fingers trembled ever so slightly, her face flushed, but definitely not from shame.
This was where she came from, Tiffany thought, taking in the sight again and feeling as bewildered as ever. But her mother never went to university, let alone finish high school, and Tiffany always made sure to come home before midnight, no matter what the other girls said about her being a goody two shoes. The disparities between the parent and the child were countless, and sometimes it made her want to ask her mother what her father was like; whether she got what she had from him.
But she remembered the last time she brought him up. Better not to drudge up old memories. It'd be like reopening old wounds for her mother to remind her about the one man in her life where the relationship had been more than just fun and games.
So Tiffany and her mother talked, trying to clear the air, and just like the last time, and the time before that, they failed and gradually, their tones became irritated and their words became loaded with accusations and reminders of past misdemeanors. They kept their voices low, but there are still some things that couldn't be hidden from onlookers, so they collected their coats and went outside.
"You know what's your problem?" Jessica hissed as they walked to her car. "You just can't let me find my own happiness. You bother me and chase those men away because you think I do all of 'this' just to embarrass you."
"You would think that too if your mother worked in porn." Tiffany plucked the keys from her hand, walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. She took off her heels. Never could quite push the gas pedal with them on.
"But if she did," Jessica retorted, sitting next to her and yanking her side door shut none too gently. "She would have done it to feed her daughter. Just as I have done for mine. Why can't you understand that?"
The engine revved to life, and Tiffany drove them out onto the road and merged with the traffic as Jessica visibly sulked. She kept her eyes on the road, her mother's question still hanging in the air between them.
She did understand. Or perhaps, she liked to think so. That didn't mean though that she had to like it. Had to accept it.
Jessica went for the stereo system, her brow furrowed as she changed channels again and again. News broadcast. Jazz. R&B. Sponsor commercial about insurance. Radio talkback station. Static. Orchestra. Static. More static. Then silence save for the engine. Jessica sat back, thoughtful. "I didn't buy you that dress," she remarked. "You had plans for tonight?"
"Dinner," Tiffany muttered softly. "Audrey leant it to me, but he had to cancel. Something came up at work." She changed lanes and took a right at the incoming intersection.
"Where at?"
"Vinnie's. That place uptown. You know it? It's-"
"Yeah I know it." Jessica glanced away and pushed a button. Her side window hummed as it lowered. She leant a little out and a light breeze ruffled her hair and made it sway. "He's breaking a lot of piggy banks if he wanted to take you there." She snorted. "It must be nice to find someone who wants to spoil you."
Tiffany bit her lip. Again with the loaded words. They switched lanes again and went up to the highway. Jessica scowled as they came upon the traffic jam, cars and trucks and vans crawling at a snail's pace. Tiffany just sighed and shifted her foot to the brake pedal.
"Did you give him a hard time?"
"For what?" The car coming to a complete stop, Tiffany put the gear into neutral.
"You know what. When you found out that he was familiar with my work."
"Oh that. No. Not really." A beat passed. Tiffany shook her head. "Maybe…Just a little." Jessica raised an eyebrow. "Okay, so I might have hung him out to dry for a bit, but I suppose the chances of finding a boy who doesn't jerk off in his spare time are somewhat…slim?"
Her mother snorted. "Try non-existent. Do you reckon he cancelled dinner because he thought you might need space?"
"You think so?" Tiffany grimaced. "Hopefully not. I wasn't mad. Just-"
"Disappointed? Embarrassed? Tiff, he doesn't know that. I was there. He looked like a puppy thinking its owner was going to leave it at the dog pound. Listen, why don't you give him a call."
'What, you mean right now?"
Jessica gestured to the sight ahead of them. "Well we've got all the time in the world what with that load of bullshit in front of us."
Tiffany frowned. She sat back and mulled it over. Jessica waited patiently, not so exasperated anymore. Tiffany threw up her hands. "Couldn't hurt, I suppose," she muttered, reaching behind her to get her handbag. It was irritating for dresses to not have pockets. "Just let me know if you see any cops about."
"You got it, hun."
Tiffany pulled out her phone and started dialing, feeling anxious. Surely he didn't get the idea that she was thinking of ending it already? Then she remembered the conversation they had after they left her mother's home and she scowled when she considered how mortified she was over the outcome of him meeting her parent. She put the phone to her ear and glanced out both side windows and then the rear view mirror. Nope. The long arm of the law wasn't here. She listened to the beeping, swallowing and brushing her hair out of her face as she waited for him to pick up. Why didn't I just say I'd text him instead? She glanced at Jessica and glared as her mother innocently smiled. Please be busy. Please go to voicemail. Please-
Click. "Tiffany?"
She cleared her throat. "Hi."
"Hey." Paper shuffling on the other end. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah. How 'bout you? The work okay?"
"I'll live. Listen, about what happened with your mother-"
"Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
A pause as that sank in. "I'm sorry it got so awkward."
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have given you so much crap about it. You really had no idea that you and her would already be so…well acquainted." Tiffany shot Jessica a look of venom as her mother covered her mouth to hold in a snicker. "Like, what are the odds?"
A feigned cough on his end. "Astronomically high. I suppose she found it funny?"
"Believe me, she'll be cracking jokes about this for months."
"Shit, that is bad."
Tiffany shrugged, and then realized she was talking on the phone. "Yeah, well, can't be helped. Anyway, I also just wanted to let you know that I'm free on Friday tomorrow if you still want to go to Vinnie's."
"Friday? Yeah, I can make Friday. Definitely. I'll take care of the reservations. Say…somewhere around eightish would be fine? Same time?"
"Sure."
"Great. I'll come pick you up a little before then." A tentative pause. "What are you wearing?"
Tiffany chuckled. "Good night. I'll see you tomorrow." She hung up, and yelped and jumped in her seat as horns loudly blared behind her in complaint.
"What timing," Jessica said as her daughter hurriedly shoved her phone into her bag. "The traffic's clearing up." Tiffany dropped her bag behind her seat and the gear stick. "Now imagine what that conversation would have been like if you just texted him instead?"
Tiffany grimaced as the car started moving again. "Please don't gloat."
"I am not gloating, Tiff. Trust me. This way's much better. Now he's probably just as happy as you are right now. No mixed signals. No uncertainty."
"And why do you reckon that?"
"I'm a mother. I know things."
Tiffany shook her head slowly in bemusement. Seconds passed, the engine humming as the car slowly followed the traffic. "Mom?" Tiffany suddenly asked.
Jessica blinked. "Yes dear?" She asked tentatively, almost fearfully.
"Can we start over? Clean slate and everything?"
Jessica relaxed and leaned back in her seat. "Of course," she murmured as Tiffany turned on the stereo system and a cheerful pop song filled the silence. "I thought you'd never ask."