19.

~ Norma spotted her mother's car near the old newspaper building.

"My mom's home." She sighed uncomfortably. Alex drove a little slower. The sun hadn't set yet, there still seemed to be time.

"Maybe I should introduce myself." He offered.

"No." Norma almost shouted defensively. "No." She said in a calmer tone.

"Come on. Moms love me." Alex smiled slightly. He was trying to be charming but looked nervous.

Norma shook her head.

"Okay." He said. "You know I'll have to meet her... someday." He seemed slightly hopeful but Norma knew she'd never introduce Alex to her mother.

"I'll see you tomorrow." She said hopefully and darted out of the car before he could say another word. It had pained her she hadn't given him the chance to kiss her or even say goodbye. What if her mother had finished packing and they would leave tonight?

Well, maybe it was better this way. No long, sappy goodbyes and promises of long love letters. It was better Alex should always remain a tender and shinning memory that could never tarnish. A memory of sweet stolen kisses that made her lips tingle, ice cream and driving in a rain storm.

~ Norma found Fanny was setting up an ugly, beige, boxy looking phone in the kitchen when she came home.

"We got a phone?" Norma asked nodding to her mother.

Fanny looked up from the faded instruction manual. The Calhouns never really had a phone before. Not when they lived so close to neighbors and convenience stores with pay phones they could use. It was always easier to give the number to the pay phone or use a neighbors as their home phone anyway and bill collectors couldn't call them this way.

"I friend at work gave it to me." Fanny said gloomily. I figured since my daughter is going to be out late, I'd better get a phone."

"So, we're staying?" Norma asked. She didn't want to sound hopeful. She dared not sound hopeful. It was never a good idea to give her mother anything she could take away.

"For now." Fanny said scowling at the instructions. The phone had to be at least a decade old and had a long twisted cord. Fanny picked up the receiver and looked annoyed.

"God! I went to the phone company and put down a deposit of of a hundred bucks and it's not even working! I'm gonna get my money back!" She looked ready to cry.

"It's probably just the phone." Norma said quickly. She was impressed her mother had gone to the trouble of setting up an account with the phone company. Things like that had always seemed a monumental effort for Fanny.

Norma took the heavy phone away from her mother who looked ready to pitch it to the wall.

"Where have you been all day anyway?" Fanny asked as Norma listened for a dial tone. She fiddled with the receiver cord, plugged it into the wall and heard it click. The dial tone humming true and Norma smiled at her mother for the first time.

"It's working." She said softly. "I was at the school."

"They don't have school on Saturday."

"I'm in theater." Norma told her easily. The sudden stability of getting a phone made all her worries feel a little less heavy. "We're getting ready for a play."

"You're in theater?" Fanny asked curiously her sad face alert with interest.

Norma nodded.

"Yeah." She smiled. "I needed a P. E. credit so they put me in a class for ball room dancing. It's a lot of fun."

Fanny smiled a little.

"Sounds fun." She said. "You should have tried to get into the art class. You were always so good at drawing. Remember how you did all those sketches?"

"Well, the art class was full." Norma sighed. "They have me taking a computer class to."

"That's good. Good for college." Fanny said eagerly and wrung her hands nervously.

Norma looked around the apartment. Fanny, in her usual fashion had made a mess. She'd fixed herself a lunch of foul smelling prepackaged food and left the wrappers out. She'd left her clothes on the floor and the mess had seemed to multiply in just a few hours that Norma had been gone.

"So, are we leaving, or what?" Norma asked dully.

"I don't know, Norma Louise." Fanny admitted sorrowfully. "I... I miss your dad. You know? He always knew what to do."

"Mom." Norma said carefully. "We need to do laundry. There's a laundromat less than a block away. We can do it all in less than a few hours. Just like we used to."

Fanny smiled and looked ready to cry.

"Yeah." She said hopefully. "Yeah, let's do laundry." She said pitifully.

~ The only good thing about a laundromat was the multitude of washers and dryers at your disposal. It meant you could do several loads at once and be done in less than a couple of hours. That is, of course if it wasn't busy, which it almost always was. Most weekends, Norma was lucky to even get a washer to herself with how pushy some of the women could be. In her mind, all she wanted, her greatest luxury, would always be her own washer and dryer.

Norma always hated coming to places like these. The overwhelming heat and humidity from the dryers pushing on you in an oppressive wave as soon as you entered was enough to knock the breath out of you. In Florida, it was even worse. The windows and doors would all be open, large fans blowing down over you while a variety of strange ethnic music was blaring from the speakers. Women shouting, sorting, folding and dirty, barefoot children running everywhere while men played cards in a covered breezeway just to escape the heat.

It was what Norma was expecting here in Oregon, but once again, things were different.

The place was warm, brightly lit, but nearly empty, with clean tiled walls and change machines that actually worked and laundry soap dispensers that were neatly full. Norma decided she would never come here alone though. Her mother looking washed out by the fluorescent lights with pitiful, sallow skin; but at least she was company.

It was lonely and noisy here, and Norma had a feeling that she might not be safe in this place where loud machines hid things and no one kept watch. Everyone was far too busy minding their own business.

In Florida, the laundromats were always open, and always occupied by scores of neighbors. Old women and new mothers washing clothes at all times of day and night. The walls bubbling from so much moisture in the air. Still, Norma had never felt unsafe there. Never felt someone could grab her and hurt her behind one of those machine and no one would know.

In Florida, there were too many people. Too many people fighting and yelling and pushing. So many in fact that Norma felt safe enough that no one would hurt her without at least a dozen or so wide hipped, large breasted women shouting about it.

It bothered Norma that there was no music here, no vibrant tropical plants growing unchecked inside and out. No one shouting in Spanish or children running about.

Just her and her mother and a few other women who kept well away from them.

As if reading her mind, Fanny nodded to the depressing atmosphere.

"We're a long way from home, huh?"

~ Fanny wasn't used to housework. Wasn't used to doing things like sorting clothes, changing them out into a dryer, setting a timer and then folding them. She seemed a little amazed at Norma's speed and agility when it came to folding her newly cleaned jeans and shirts. It had always been Fanny's way to not bother.

Clean clothes had never been high on Fanny's list of priorities. All through Norma's childhood, she and Caleb had spent entire summers in clothes caked in dirt and grime. Cleaning her children had never occurred to Fanny as something to be done. As apart of the bargain between mother and child. Norma knew as long as her mother's own immediate wants were fulfilled, she rarely cared about the needs of anyone else.

It was one of the many things Norma had to wonder about her mother but would never get an answer to. Hadn't she ever washed and folded clothes before? What had Fanny's life been like? Why was she so... distant from normal people?

"Where'd you get all these nice clothes?" Fanny asked eyeing the blue sweater Norma took the time to take out of the washer and set aside to air dry.

"They have a really nice resale shop nearby." Norma told her simply. Fanny looked as if she didn't believe her. Her bright blue eyes, Norma's own eye color, shifting back to the sweater.

"You dressing up nice for school now? You never dressed up for school before." She said sourly. "You and Caleb were always... shorts and shirts."

Norma nodded.

"It's going to be too cold to wear that here." She said dryly.

Fanny seemed slightly annoyed.

"You should have told me to get you new clothes. We could have gone to Walmart or... I don't know." She said.

"I can pick out my own clothes." Norma said. She didn't want to tell her mother that the girls here didn't wear clothes from Walmart. Not when just a few months ago, new clothes from a discount store would have made her so happy. Everything was different now.

"Yeah." Fanny said sadly. The older woman pouted, childlike. Her too thin frame leaning against a washer as she watcher her daughter fold the rest of her clean clothes. Fanny didn't offer to help. She only watched her as though hypnotized.

"There's a driver's ED class coming up soon." Norma said conversationally.

"I don't want you driving." Fanny said sourly.

"I'm sixteen." Norma said.

"I don't want you driving." Fanny said stubbornly. "You're too young to drive anywhere, anyway."

Norma was about to argue with her mother. To point out she wasn't too young to do all the housework, to buy her own clothes, get herself enrolled in school or to worry about where their next meal was going to come from. Not to mention all the stress Fanny was always putting on her with her erratic tantrums.

She just glared at her mother.

Fanny shook her head as if her mind was made up.

"Besides, you'll want to drive my car and I need my car. Want to run off with some boy. Get into trouble." You need to stay home, Norma Louise." Fanny said at last.

Norma knew that last sentence wasn't at all her mother speaking. It was Ray Calhoun voicing his age old hate speech about how their only daughter would run off with some boy and 'get into trouble'.

"Well, I'm going to at least to take the class." Norma said in a curt tone.

"You're still a minor." Fanny said. "You... you have to do what I say."

Her tone wavered as if she wasn't used to being in charge of anything. Which, Norma knew, she wasn't.

~ Norma decided that she would forge Fanny's signature on the driver's ED form. The school wouldn't know any better, no one would. She'd have Alex help her learn and there was nothing Fanny could do about it.

"Come on." Fanny said waving at Norma and snapping her fingers. "I'll have to be back at work soon. Finish up so I can leave."

Norma glared at her mother and finished neatly folding her own clothes; leaving Fanny's a mess that would be wrinkled.

"I may borrow that blue sweater tonight." Fanny said.

"No." Norma said hotly. "It's..." she'd first meat Alex in that sweater and didn't want her mother to spoil it. "It's still wet. You have your own clothes. That red top and those leather pants I saw yesterday."

"There's no reason we can't share clothes." Fanny said hurrying to keep pace with Norma as they walked back to the apartment. Norma carefully carrying her load and Fanny lazily hugging her basket on her hip. "Just like sisters."

Norma glance back at her mother in surprise. As if she hadn't just chided her like a parent a minute ago, now Fanny wanted to be her friend and borrow her clothes.

"You have your own clothes." Norma said again.