“You do, too. You think those things, and I’m here to tell you why believing that shit is wrong.” She takes a breath, and launches full steam ahead. “First of all, you work insanely hard to pay a mortgage and bills that you never expected to pay. That in and of itself makes you goddamn incredible.”
My eyes sting and my nostrils flare, but I keep focused on my housework as I listen, because I don’t have timenotto multitask. I sink into the couch with a basket of freshly laundered towels next to me. I dive in, pulling out a fadedTeenageMutant Ninja Turtlesbath towel, and start folding. “Thank you for saying so.”
He steamrolls my appreciation with a “Please, I’m only trying to make you see yourself the way everyone else does. So let me keep talking, got it?” It’s rhetorical, so I stay quiet and keep listening, moving onto a blue and white striped beach towel that Archie took from the kick-board rental station last summer.
“You were put in a shitty situation, and you made it golden. Your boys adore you, they love you but just as important as adoration and love? Theyrespectyou, Clara June. They listen to you. You’ve figured out a way to be both a parent and a friend, and you’ve given them an incredible life so far. No part of who you are should even borrow insecurity, much less own it.”
Tears are slipping freely down my cheeks now, but I swipe at them as Rawley and Jo Jo come down the hall, their hands linked as usual.
“I love you for saying those things,” I tell Jackie, snatching another towel from the basket. This one is my favorite. Gray, and still kind of fluffy.
“Those things I said are true.” The typing resumes, and I’m glad for her but also glad for her busy job at this moment because more sweet things right now? I’d probably start bawling.
Rawley leads Jo Jo into the kitchen, but her eyes catch mine as they pass and she waves, mouthing hello. I wave back, and give her a wink, placing the gray towel on top of the striped one. “Thanks.”
“Good. Now instead of feeling allho-hum, just feel allhoand have fun.”
I can’t help but erupt into laughter at that, because I haven’t ever been a hoe, not a single day of my life. “I’ll have to try it your way,” I reply, watching Jo Jo slip out the backdoor into the yard, taking Archie’s hand as she walks him away from the peach tree.Good girl, Jo Jo.
“Well, report back. Text or call. Sometime this week, too, Clara June. So help me, I don’t want any of thisI had mind blowing sex with him but it was five days agobullshit. If you get dicked down, you better tell me. Tonight.”
I nearly choke, leaning over on the couch to see if Rawley is still in the kitchen, and he is. “We aren’t—you realize we’re all going to get chili dogs, right? That my children will be there? There will be no—” I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Hoeing.Not tonight, at least.”
“Chili dogs don’t take long. Give the boys a ball to play with and get that dick,” she says.
I can’t help but laugh. Jackie isn’t a parent, so to her, all children are the same age. Two? Give them a ball. Eight? Ball. Seventeen? You get the drill.
After we end the call, Rawley pops his head into the living room, a bologna sandwich in one hand. “Can Jo Jo come with us to dinner tonight?”
I don’t even have to think about it. “Of course. Did she ask her folks?”
He nods, biting into his pre-dinner dinner, a meal created and adored by teenagers world wide. “Yeah, it’s cool, she just got off the phone with Riley.”
I pat the couch next to me, moving the basket to the floor for a minute. “Hey, come sit with me for a minute, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
By the time he crosses the room and sits down, half the sandwich is gone. How do kids do that? He pushes dark hair off his face, and looks into my eyes. “What’s up, Mom?”
“I know you applied for the apprenticeship at Wrench Kings before we spoke, and that you put Jackie down as your guardian, you know, on the application.”
He rests the last two bites of the sandwich on his black jeans covered knee. Reasoning with his hands, he says, “Mom, I put her down because I had to put someone down and I needed to get my application in on time and I figured by the time anyone even looked at it, I would have already talked to you about everything.” He takes a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it in the backstabby way it’s coming across.”
I shake my head. “I know you didn’t, and that’s not why I brought it up, because I assumed that was your intention. I know you, Rawley. You’re smart. You knew Jackie would tell me, so I believe you, I believe you planned on telling me.”
He nods. “Good, because that is the truth. I was nervous to tell you I didn’t wanna go to college, and nervous to tell you about the apprenticeship, you know, because of the cost and the shift in expectations and everything,” he says, his eyes staying level with mine, focused and clear.
They may not put the toilet seat down, and they may be awful at laundry, and terrible with remembering to write things on the grocery list when they finish them, but Jackie’s right. They’re respectful boys, and I’m lucky. Really fucking lucky.
Before we talked about Dean and the chili dog date, Jackie and I talked about Rawley, and the phone call she received the other day. Turns out, the Wrench Kings want Rawley for their program, which starts in the fall semester of his senior year. The program enrollment costs $1,000 but, according to the guy who called Jackie, they have payment plans and have a pay-down program that allows working mechanics to have the cost of the enrollment withdrawn from their paycheck in small amounts after they are hired, until it’s paid all the way off.
Sounds like a really good company, offering so manyoptions and opportunities to young students. Not that I had reservations about him being a mechanic, but if I had, Jackie’s rundown would’ve squashed it.
“You know how I figured out you put Jackie on your application?” I ask, a smile twitching at my lips. “They called her, because they accepted you into their program.”
He swallows, his eyes flitting between mine as he processes this new information, the good news. “I got accepted? But it was a long shot. I have like, no experience.”
I shrug. “I didn’t see the application. But whatever you said impressed them.” I wrap my arms around my boy that grew past me years ago. “Congratulations Rawley.”
We pull apart. “I promise I’m gonna pay you back for those dumped tutoring sessions.”
