Morning Glory

"Kendall for the love of god, get out of bed! You are so beyond late!" I banged on the door and heard whimpers in response. I ran past the bathroom and saw Olivia squirting half a tube of toothpaste on her toothbrush and making a gigantic mess of the bathroom sink.

"Mom? Are you taking them to school? If you aren't, I need a note saying why we're late…" I yelled out as I tapped on her bedroom door.

It was hard to determine what Ashley took worse - the news that I had quit the cheerleading squad or the difficulty she was having finding a new housekeeper.

On one hand, I didn't actually get the chance to tell her that I had quit the squad. Nick accidentally blurted it out while picking me up the night after she returned from Old Orchard. She initially thought it was a joke and burst out laughing, but my horrified expression revealed the truth and her laughter turned to blind rage pretty quickly.

However, the inability to find anyone to take over for Georgette seemed to present a more immediate struggle for my mother and my family as a whole. The staffing agency sent over a girl the day after Georgette quit who barely made it through the morning before leaving in tears. A rotating cast of applicants came and went over the next week that ultimately ended with a conversation between the owner of the staffing company and my father, indicating that our household had needs more complex than what his team could handle and that he would need to look elsewhere for a new housekeeper.

In the midst of this, details surrounding Georgette's departure came to light. It turned out that one of the Beach Club's concierges found my mother passed out in a lounge chair in a pool of her own vomit the morning that Georgette was called to retrieve her. They tried to be discreet when waking my mother and getting her home, but unfortunately several Club members saw her being helped out of the club. Ashley was humiliated and misdirected her anger and frustration at Georgette, who she disrespected and yelled at in the club's parking lot. That was the final straw for Georgette, who realized that my mother was beyond help and made the decision to quit.

Ashley's performance in the parking lot had many witnesses, and the rumor mill started churning at full force. I can't help but think my mother's inability to hire a new housekeeper isn't somehow tied to the gossip going around about how Ashley Scanlon got drunk and verbally abused her housekeeper in public. I can't see many people wanting to sign up for Georgette's old job based on image.

Without a housekeeper or a functioning parent around, I had reluctantly stepped into the role of adult-on-duty, especially in the mornings when everyone needed to get off to school. I was far from adept at it and the first few weeks of school had been jam packed with chaotic mornings.

"Get me a pen and keep it down out there." Ashley's muffled response came from the master bedroom. I rolled my eyes as I ducked into my room to find a pen and paper, knowing there was no way I was going to get the girls out of the house and to school on time, especially without reinforcements.

Kendall emerged from her bedroom slowly as little Olivia popped out of the bathroom looking disheveled. "Rory what's for breakfast?" I bent down to smooth her sweater and reclip the bow in her hair. "There's muffins in the pantry, go grab one." "But I'm thirsty too!" She whined. Her wails were met with an annoyed grunt from the nearby master bedroom.

"Lauren, do not feed those girls muffins! They're both getting fat! And where are you with that pen? The note seemed to be quite urgent a minute ago, I don't have all day to wait around for you."

I felt my jaw clench in annoyance. As I stepped toward the bedroom to hand over the almighty pen, I looked down and noticed that Olivia's lip had started to quiver at being called fat. I sighed and knelt back down to her. "Don't listen to her, you're beautiful. Go downstairs and get a muffin and just have some water from the sink, I'll get you juice in a minute, ok?" I whispered in her ear and gave her a hug. She weakly nodded and made her way downstairs.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to the pen and paper in my hand and the closed bedroom door in front of me. I opened the door slowly and saw my mother lying in bed with a cold cloth on her forehead. It was an unsurprising accessory given the two bottles of pinot grigio that lay empty on her nightstand. She used to make an effort to hide the evidence...she would at least tuck the empty booze bottles under her bed or stuff her pill bottles in a drawer. But since school had started, it appeared she had given up the facade.

I looked at her for a moment as she laid there. The resemblance we shared was undeniable, although it was clear her reliance on her precious pinot had aged her.

She twitched slightly in her bed, having just noticed I was there. She held out her hand and I gave her the pen and paper.

"Three notes. Say you had car trouble."

"I'll write that my daughters are useless and can't get themselves together without my constant help if I please. Honestly Lauren, it's shameful that you girls are incapable of getting yourselves out of the house in the morning." She lifted the towel off her eye to glare at me.

"Rory, I'm thirsty!" Olivia cried from downstairs.

My mother scowled. "How can something so small be so goddamn loud? Did you bring coffee?" Her eyes darted to my empty hands and her frown lines deepened.

"Write the notes and I'll bring you some." I turned to leave and whirled around when she continued.

"And shut that kid up while you're down there, get her a goddamn drink, a shot of arsenic for all I care. And make sure her hair isn't a disaster, she's too old to be looking like a street rat at school." Her eyes turned back to the pad of paper, as if dismissing me. I rolled my eyes and headed downstairs, wondering if it even dawned on her that maybe if she pulled herself out of bed things would be going a bit more smoothly.

I was shocked to see my father at the kitchen table, drinking what appeared to be the last cup of coffee from the pot. I don't know why I was surprised, my father had tuned out most of what was going on in his house for the past several years. It would never occur to him to look up from his morning paper and pour a cup of juice for his screaming kid sitting less than six feet from him.

I refilled and flipped on the coffee maker and poured some lemonade into a glass for Olivia and second for Kendall, who had finally come downstairs. "Alright kiddos, chow down and drink up. Are your backpacks packed? We need to leave in 5 minutes."

"Someone has to check my homework! Mom said she'd do it in the morning!" Olivia looked up at me.

"Take it out, I'll look in the car."

"Mommy's supposed to sign it."

"I'll sign it."

"That's not allowed…" Her earnest little face looked up at me full of concern.

"Well, you could always ask Daddy to help you out." My father jolted in his chair and Olivia ran over to him, babbling about her homework. He dismissively looked it over and etched his signature on it.

I walked over to the table where he sat. "The cold cloth on her forehead made all the difference, thanks for your help this morning." He looked up at me, briefly incredulous, but rather than reply he stood up and moved toward the coat rack where his hat and briefcase sat.

"Lauren! Coffee!" The unmistakable screech came from upstairs and my father froze when he heard his wife's voice. He seemed to shake it off quickly as he turned to me. "Bring your mother some coffee and here, take some money for gas for bringing the girls to school." He reached into his wallet and handed me a $10 bill. I rolled my eyes at the bribe but snatched the money out of his hand as I stepped back to the kitchen to get my mother a cup of coffee.

"I thought we were going to be late! Now you need to get mom coffee?" Kendall appeared by the front door, dropping muffin crumbs as she spoke.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, you're spitting crumbs everywhere." I pointed at the mess by her feet as I slid past her to the kitchen. "Can you make sure Liv has all her stuff? I'm bringing this coffee up and then we gotta jet." I poured a mug of coffee and a tall glass of water and started back up to my mother's room.

She was sitting more upright than when I left. Her hands reached out immediately for the coffee and I placed the glass of water next to the empty wine bottle on her night table. I picked the notepad up from off the bed and saw three sloppily written notes that mentioned something vaguely of car trouble.

"You know their school is probably going to call you later, right?"

"Why on earth would they do that?"

"Because this is going to be their fourth tardy in less than three weeks."

"I'll explain to them what a disaster those children are in the morning. If the school provided stronger discipline they wouldn't be like this. Lauren, be a doll and get me a couple of aspirin, will you?" Ashley's specialty was deflecting criticism. I doubted if she had ever taken responsibility for anything in her life. I stepped to the bathroom and leafed through dozens of pill bottles until I found the aspirin. I heard her chatter from the other room.

"Lauren what day is it? Tuesday? When will the ballots get circulated?"

"Next Friday." I mumbled as I carried the aspirin to her night table.

She looked me up and down. "That dress does nothing for you. The week before homecoming nominations you should really be looking your best...you have a great figure and that dress is covering it all up. Aren't you worried Nick might find you frumpy? You know he's a shoo in for king, I can't imagine anything more humiliating than another girl getting crowned with your future husband. You won't be able to show your daughter the photos someday, you'll be too embarrassed."

Hungover in bed, kids late for school, but naturally Ashley had all the energy in the world to discuss the homecoming dance.

"If I wasn't so late for school I'd change into something a little more flattering, but the girls are waiting downstairs, we really have to go."

"Well, at least put on some lipstick before you walk into the building, everyone needs to know you're taking this seriously. Appearance is the first way to impress people, you know that."

She continued to ramble about blush and mascara as I made my exit. I stood for a moment outside her closed door and took a deep breath. As I exhaled, I tried to push down all of the anger I had that she had the luxury of lying in bed all day while I took criticism about her superficial priorities and made sure her kids got to school. I must have taken a moment too long to myself because Kendall yelled up the stairs. "Rory! What are you doing? We need to go!"

Kendall's cries agitated my mother from the other side of the door as she yelled some expletives. I snapped out of it and shuffled down the stairs. My sisters and I made our way out to the car and drove in silence. Knowing we were already all super late, I took the long way down Castle View Road toward the center of town. I could tell the girls could probably use a few minutes to decompress from the hectic morning we had. These chaotic mornings had become more and more typical and it didn't take a psychologist to see that it had started to take a toll on each of us.

I pulled up to the primary school and parked lazily in a no parking zone. I pulled out two of the notes my mother had hastily written and hurried the girls inside. The secretary saw us and a look of disappointment painted her face. "I'm so sorry, my mother had car trouble." I passed the notes to her and she unfolded them. "Go on in, girls."

I turned to walk away but the secretary stopped me. "I'll have to call your mother about these repeated tardies, Miss Scanlon."

"I understand. I'm sure she'll give us all a stern talking to for having you disrupt her. We'll try to be more organized."

The crotchety old hag sneered at me. "The girls should really be taking the bus, that would assure they would arrive on time. You need to improve your morning routine or we'll have to call both your parents in."

"This sounds like a conversation you should be having with my parents. As you can see, I'm also late for school and did my best to get my sisters here on time. I did the best I could under the circumstances." I felt my neck grow hot with anger the more I thought about those circumstances.

She opened her mouth to retort but I had already whipped around and made my way toward the door. I didn't need to dissect the Ashley situation with some cranky grammar school secretary, let her call over to the house and get an earful from the source. What I needed was a cigarette. The clock on the school sign read 8:36. My next class started at 9 so I figured I might as well take my time.

I shuffled out to my questionably parked car and reached into my glove box and pulled out a cigarette. I inhaled deeply as I slowly processed the chaotic morning and realized that I should plan to start waking up earlier to avoid more mornings like this.

I drove into the high school parking lot and was stuck with a space in the cheap seats. I gathered my things and when I slid my keys in my pocket I felt the $10 my father had given me. My face grew flushed with anger when I thought back to how he sat silently sipping his coffee, ignoring the chaos around him and his incapacitated wife. $10 is all that trouble was worth to him.

I took a deep breath and tried to push it all out of my head. I smoothed my allegedly ill fitting dress and climbed out of the car. I walked slowly toward the building as I tried to remember what I had going on that day. Vague memories of a supposed pop quiz in statistics floated around my head and I'm pretty sure I had signed up to recruit freshmen to the football booster club at lunch. Lunch. I hadn't packed lunch for the girls. I was so focused on getting them out the door I hadn't even thought of it. I froze. I couldn't go home and deal with whatever state Ashley was in...I remembered the $10 in my pocket and decided that after Calculus I would ditch study hall and run to Blue Point and run some sandwiches over...it would have to do. Although facing that nasty secretary might not be pleasant...especially if she did manage to get my mother on the phone.

I pulled open the front door of the high school headed toward the office. The secretary manning the front desk was finishing up a phone call as I handed her my tardy note. She squinted as she read it and I noticed her expression soften as she made sense of Ashley's gibberish. It was the fourth incoherent note I had brought this year and I got the impression that unlike the primary school secretary, this woman might have a little compassion for a potentially chaotic home situation.

I walked up the stairs and as I turned the corner to go to my locker I noticed Nick standing there. It would be pretty impossible not to notice Nick, 6'4, chiseled jaw, sandy brown hair, green eyes, charismatic, athletic...he commanded a lot of attention.

"Where ya been kid? Ditch first period like a rebel?" He grinned and leaned in for a kiss.

I smiled. "I don't see you sitting in class."

"Ahhh coach called me out for a meeting. Turns out that Penn State, UMass and Maryland are sending scouts on Friday so we were going over a few things. Theresa's in British Lit with me, can you get the notes from her? You stink of butts, by the way. I wish you'd cut it out with the cigarettes." Nick was one of the top tight end prospects in the entire state and had college football recruitment offers flying his way for two years. He was having a great season and these next couple of weeks would lock down any offers coming his way. Needless to say, academics weren't the number one priority. The girls in the football booster club all secretly traded class notes and helped the players pass their classes...illicit notebooks full of past assignments and tests were passed around to assure that all of the stars kept their grades up and didn't need academic probation. As Booster Club Vice President and Nick's girlfriend, keeping Nick's GPA up had been my part time job the past couple of years and the workload had seemingly increased tenfold this year.

"So where were you?" Nick turned his attention back to me as I fumbled through my locker for my second period books.

"The girls slept late and Ashley had car trouble so I ended up having to take them in. Just normal Scanlon house chaos." Nick knew very little of what normal Scanlon house chaos was like. I hated having him over to the house because my mother made such a fuss over him. It outwardly creeped him out when my mother would hug him for a little too long or worse, when she'd mention our future wedding and kids. He had called me out on her seeming drunk a few times when he was over and I always tried to laugh it off, but then again it wasn't like he was that invested in my family. It's not like Nick was especially tuned into the emotional climate around him.

"Rugrat transportation duty, sounds like an awesome way to start the day. Do you have to pick them up or can you come over after school? Coach has JV meetings after school so Varsity isn't practicing til 6...my parents won't be home so thought it might be a good chance for me to improve your day…" He grinned and slid his hand around my waist.

"Don't you have a bio lab due? You need to at least sort of be able to fake it through the presentation. We need to work on that." He turned and dramatically slammed his body against the locker.

"You're no fun at all." He made a pouty face and again started pulling at my waist.

"You better work hard...if we get our work done and there's time leftover maybe we can find a teeny tiny little bit of time to enjoy ourselves." I smiled innocently up at him.

"Ahhh that's my girl. You always know how to properly motivate me." He grinned and I forced a smile. It all sounded fun in theory, but I knew that the second we set foot in Nick's house after school his hands would be all over me and the biology would be studied in a much different format than his teacher intended. He'd immediately zone out after that and I'd spend all night writing note cards and getting him pages to copy over in his own handwriting. At least I'd be out of the house...I wasn't too keen on heading straight home after school to see what kind of state Ashley would be in. A little extra bio homework was an easy trade off to stay out of the house.

The second period bell rang abruptly and Nick walked me to calculus. He made another big spectacle of kissing me before leaving me at the classroom door, leaving me bright red as he grinned and walked away. He relished the attention we got when we walked the halls. He loved nothing more than being the center of the high school, the most well known teenager around town. I could have done without all of the fuss, but I guess I had gotten used to it over the years.

I tried to ignore the eyes on my flushed cheeks as I made my way to my desk. I sat down and tried to focus on the equations on the chalkboard and not the crazy morning or the busy day ahead of me. The math in front of me, although complicated, seemed so simple in a way. There was a problem presented and a series of steps could be performed to solve it. Compared to life, math seemed pretty easy.