"MOMMA!" It was dark. Again.
The tv, where I had been watching re-runs of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, was off. The lights in the kitchen and living room, off. The sounds of John Mayer coming from our room, silenced. In place of light and Will Smith's voice, I could hear her laughing in our bedroom.
"MOMMA! Come here would you?" I call sarcastically, feeling a slight deja-vu, as this had happened just about five months ago in a different town. In a different state. When we had different names and different hair.
She walks into the living room holding one of her expensive scented candles, where I'm sitting on the old couch in the dark, with a wild smile on her face. I start laughing at the look in her eyes, following our pattern even though I know what she'll say.
"So, momma. It's dark in here, why do you think that is?" I know the reason, she bought us new summer dresses yesterday at the mall, with money put aside for silly things like the electric bill.
"Well, Bella, my darling daughter. Do you like this dress? I like this dress. I like it better than any stupid lights." She laughed, and I laughed. We do a lot of laughing when most people would be freaking out, its part of our strange lives.
" I do like your dress, I like the dress you got for me too. Have you been working the overtime hours you said you were working" I'm certain she hasn't, but I take the courtesy and ask. I'm nice that way.
"Do I do anything of the things I say I should be doing sweetie?" She doesn't wait for me to answer; we both know the answer is that she doesn't.
"I've been working on a project, which has not been successful. Hence this darkness problem." She tells me matter-of-factly. I love this woman; she takes everything so completely lighthearted. I have learned this from her, its an amazing skill. I look at her quizzically, wondering about this project. Before I can ask she answers, she always seems to be able to know what I want to know.
"I'm writing a book. It's going pretty well. No, that's a lie, its going downright awful. I am not a writer, Bella dear." She looks at me sheepishly, and of course, I laugh.
I know she's not a writer, neither is she a painter or a yoga instructor or a self-help seminar conductor. She is not a bible study teacher or a chimney sweep, she cannot type more than 27 words per minute, she doesn't even fold sweaters the way Banana Republic claims one should. But she is a wonderful mother.
I know because she has tried every one of those careers, along with many others more or less embarrassing, and she does it all for me.
"Bella? Do you really like this town?" She leans back on her heals, like an excited 5 year old, and I stand up before her.
I stand up on my tip toes, leaning towards her, and in the same excited voice I say the same thing I always say.
"It's nothing to call the president about." She grins a real wide smile, and runs back to our room. I can hear her rummaging through one of our duffle bags and then she skips back into the room with the old marked up map.
The map is our whole lives in big folding paper. It's got a sticker on every town we've lived, a total of 42. On the back is every one of our names, only a few repeats. We even have pictures of our favorite identities, like when we were Anastasia and Fantasia descendents of Russian royalty. Or when I went through a black power faze, and I named myself Sasha Fierce and had Momma braid my hair into awful brown cornrows.
I walk to the kitchen and grab two flashlights, and the two of us sit down Indian style on the cheap gray carpet, the big map in the middle.
Life has always been this way for me, me and momma, always on our own.
Every couple of months, we're completely different people. We have a natural knack for escaping bill collectors.
And so we sit, planning our new lives. Because the electricity is out, and soon it'll be the rent. Soon that red slip will come in the mail, and momma will get real nervous while I rush through the house packing everything important. We'll load all those expensive summer dresses and think winter coats that we didn't need into the bronco.
I'll make a new mix CD of old songs and we'll sneak out of our apartment at night time so the land lord doesn't know that we're skipping out without paying the bills. Momma will drive too fast and jerky for the first hour, knowing she's wasting gas by doing that. I'll bite my lip, and we won't talk much. Until we pass that familiar sign, always in different colors and fonts, but saying the same thing.
Hope you enjoyed your stay! Come again soon!
And then she'll pull over the car, since its nighttime no one is ever on the back highways, and we'll both hop out the car. She'll take off her shoes, and I will too and then we walk to the middle of the road and lay down. I grab her hand and squeeze it tight.
Momma turns her head and whispers to me, so as not to disturb the calm of the darkness.
"I love you, Bella."
"I love you most, Momma."
We relish in the moment, wondering what the future holds. How this new town will accept us, a 17 year old girl and her 35 year old mother. Both of us a little on the crazy side, a lot on the wild side. Two beautiful, eccentric women, living a very unorthodox life.
After what seems like just minutes, but is actually about an hour, we pick ourselves up and jump back in that old bronco. I put in that new CD full of songs we both can sing by heart, and we put down all the windows. Its 2 am and we're driving again, leaving Phoenix behind, it wasn't anything special anyways.
"What do you think my name should be this time?" My momma looks at me real quick, so as not to drive off the road like we've done too many times before. I shrug and keep singing along, wondering the same thing myself. For the past five months, I have been Courtney Schollian, cheerleader extraordinaire. I had 7 good friends, all cheerleaders, and 5 boys who watched my ass everyday going down the hall in my little skirt.
The blonde dye in my hair was starting to wear out, the brown showing through almost completely. I threw my blue contacts out the window and left my letter jacket on Anna's front porch with a note telling them I was leaving, I loved them, but we'd never see each other again. It didn't hurt so much, after doing it all my life. I would miss them, until I found myself in another social circle at this new school.
"Wanna be ourselves this time? We've never just used our real names, no one will know." I cross my fingers, not knowing for once what she'll say. I've always loved coming up with a new personality for the two of us, a new character for us to be until the bills pile up and momma doesn't like her job anymore.
"I like that. I like that a lot, Ms. Swan." She smiles and turns the music up some more as a favorite song of ours comes on.
"You and me together, we can do anything." We sing off tune, practically screaming it out the windows. I laugh just because. Momma smiles and grabs my hand, and without saying anything I understand what she means.
Watch out Forks, Washington. Here come the Swan Girls.
