I washed my face and looked at myself in the mirror again, glanced at my nails and my chest and sighed. In for a Pennyworth in for the whole Wayne Manor, I decided.

Part 4 - Momland

Chapter 19 - Grounded

“I’m Rory Beeson, Mrs. Kissee. Cindy’s little brother. Davey and I went to school together,” I heard Rory tell my mom.

“It’s Parker,” she said. “I use my maiden name now. And you’re not anyone’s little brother, the size on you!”

Rory laughed at that, of course.

I washed my face and looked at myself in the mirror again, glanced at my nails and my chest and sighed. In for a Pennyworth in for the whole Wayne Manor, I decided. I pulled my makeup repair kit out of my purse and began work.

I didn’t hear everything Mom and Rory were saying because they moved into the kitchen apparently. But I did hear Mom ask Rory, “Are you the one Davey was on a date with?”

Rory replied, “Yes, ma’am. We went out to dinner at my cousin’s place in Hollywood and then for a drive by the ocean.”

“Hmph,” Mom sounded doubtful, but I didn’t hear her next question, just Rory’s reply.

“I don’t know anything about a phone call from a doctor, but she did say something about she couldn’t go see me play tomorrow afternoon because she has a doctor’s appointment in the morning.”

Again, Mom’s voice disappeared in the sound of traffic from Vermont and Hollywood Boulevard a block away.

But Rory said, “Uh—yes, I mean—um, Davey.” He said something else in a lower voice I didn’t catch.

So she hadn’t missed him calling me ‘she’ and ‘her’ and she had gotten a call, probably from Dr. Forbes. That made things both harder and easier.

Someone rapped sharply on the bathroom door and almost caused me to poke myself in the eye.

“Davey? Rory needs to use the bathroom, too. Are you—almost done with whatever you’re doing?”

She sounded calm, but Mom had worked in emergency rooms before getting an office job with Dr. Herlihy’s clinic. “I’ll be right out,” I said. And, damn, did I pitch that up into the girlier-than-thou range?

I did my lips the way I had been taught, this time using the Honestly Red shade to stand out in dimmer light. I noticed—Rory had mentioned it before—I was missing a clip-on ear-bob, but there was no time to do anything about it, so I took the other off and put it in my pocket.

I opened the door, and Mom stood there right in front of me. She looked me up and down once then grabbed my hand, pulling me forward. “Get out of the way, dear, I think Mr. Beeson needs to hit a line drive or something.”

Chuckling, Rory managed to slip his bulk past us into the now vacant bathroom. “Thank you, Miz Parker.” He shut the door behind him, and I heard the toilet seat clatter against the tank.

Mom towed me toward the kitchen, calling back. “Just let yourself out, Rory. I think ‘Kissy’ and I can handle things ourselves now.” We didn’t linger to hear a reply.

“Mom,” I began, but she hushed me.

“I want a cup of tea,” she said. “Put the kettle on, Kissy, dear.”

“Uh—okay, Mom.” Late-night tea-drinking went with serious discussions in our family, like when Mom told me about the divorce, my father’s remarriage, and the passing of my last grandparent. But she’d called me Kissy without any emphasis on the name at all. A good sign? I didn’t know.

I emptied the electric kettle and refilled it with cold water and turned it on. Then I ran hot water from the tap into the tea kettle, put it in the pot, and covered it with the cozy while Mom filled the tea ball with the chamomile blend.

We heard a flushing sound and Rory coming down the hall. He paused in the living room and waved at us through the kitchen arch. “G’night, Miz Parker. G’night—uh—Davey.”

“Good night, Rory. Thanks,” I called back.

“You’d better call her Kissy when she’s dressed like this, Rory. It could get confusing otherwise,” Mom said.

“Uh—right. I guess it could. G’night, Kissy.” Rory fled. I’d never seen such an expression on his face before. Not fright, but something like it. I waved at him as he disappeared.

After he closed the door behind him, Mom said, “You’d best go give him a good night kiss.”

“Uh—what!?”

“If he spent money on you, he’s expecting a kiss.”

“Mom—.”

“Was he a gentleman?”

I thought about that a moment. “I guess so. Yeah.”

“Then he deserves a kiss. You’ve got things to learn about being a girl. If you want him to ask you out again, kiss him. Go.” She made a shooing motion.

I went, hurrying, through the door after him. “Wait,” I called when I saw him climbing into his truck. He hopped back down and came toward me.

How was I supposed to kiss him? If I stood on tiptoe, I’m not sure I could reach his chin.

“Kissy,” he said. He handed me something, my missing ear bob. “It was right there, on top of the console. It must have come off.”

“Thanks,” I said, stopping in front of him. “Mom says you should—,” I tried to explain, putting the bit of jewelry in my pocket with the other one. I needed a stepladder.

“What?” he asked.

I put my face up and stood on tiptoe. “Kiss me,” I said.

He laughed, put an arm around me and pulled me up to where our lips met. I felt that meltiness inside I’d felt when he turned around in line at the burger stand. The kiss lasted a while. My feet weren’t touching the ground, and my toes curled and uncurled in my shoes.

Mom’s voice came from the door. “That’s enough, kids,” she said.

Rory put me back down. “That do you? Think you could make it to my game on Saturday? It’s in Newport at 5 p.m.”

“I don’t know. How would I get there?”

“I could take you, but I have to leave here at noon. That’s a long time to sit around watching guys sweat in the summer sun.”

I giggled. The thought had an appeal I would not have expected. “I might be able to stand that,” I said.

He nodded, dug into a pocket and handed me his phone. “Put in your number. I’ll call before I come over. Wear something summery but bring a sweater. Newport can be unpredictable.”

“Okay,” I said. I punched in my number. He gave me a peck on the forehead as he took the phone back and whispered, “Your mom is still watching. She’s something, ain’t she?”

I nodded.

“So are you, Kissy,” he said. Then he got in his truck and pulled out. The big vehicle was silly, with four doors and its jacked-up suspension, but it suited him. He rolled down his window and waved, and I waved back.

Mom came up beside me. “Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”

I stood for a moment more, trying to catch a breeze like we’d felt on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I remembered sitting on his thigh like a cowgirl on a pony, kissing and being kissed, wanting to slide back and forth on his jeans and feel something inside me melt. I resisted using my hands to rub my fake breasts to get at the itchy nipples underneath. Damnit.

Mom tugged on my arm, and I followed her. “Did he ask you out again?” she wanted to know.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “On Saturday afternoon to watch him play ball.”

She shut the door behind us. The kettle was whistling, and I hurried on into the kitchen. “Too bad you’re going to have to convince me you’re not grounded for the next six months.”

“What? Mom! You told me to go kiss him!”

“I wanted to see if you’d do it.” I rolled my eyes at her, but she just grinned.

I poured the hot water out of the teapot, put in the tea ball, filled the pot with boiling water from the kettle, and snugged the tea cozy around the already warm pot. Mom’s parents were Canadians, and they took tea seriously, even non-tea teas like chamomile.

“Sit,” Mom ordered, and I sat at the kitchen table with her. “So how long has this been going on?”

“Uh—with Rory? Just this evening.”

She waved a hand. “Have you been wearing my clothes when I’m not home?”

“What? No, Mom. They wouldn’t fit anyway.” True, we were near the same height, but Mom had a very womanly figure.

“Some of them would,” she noted. “That shirt and pants and shoes are Davey’s, but where did you get what you’re wearing under them?

I told her the whole story. Marjorie picking me up from yardwork, taking me shopping in Melrose, dressing me up as a girl. She made me bring in the shoes and dress I’d been wearing when I admitted they were in my closet.

“Nice,” she said. “Good taste. Did you pick the dress?”

“Uh, no.”

She nodded. “What happened next?”

I told her about meeting Armand in the street, getting my nails done, and my legs, pits and eyebrows waxed. Then we went to see the doctor.

“Why did you fall apart then?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know.” We’d drunk a whole pot of tea by then, so I got up and started making more. “I’d found out about her money and talking with the doctor about taking hormones and seeing the bearded lady in his waiting room…. I started to feel like a pet poodle or something. Being groomed, getting my shots…. And—and—.”

I knew I might just burst into tears again.

“In all this,” Mom asked, looking at me thoughtfully, “why didn’t you ever get your ears pierced?”

My hands went to my lobes. “Mom! That would hurt!”

She laughed, and after a moment, so did I, giggling at the absurdity.

She wiped her eyes. “So, you came home and decided to go out trolling for boys?”

“I—I—.” What could I say? It did kind of look like that.

“Finding out that you weren’t attracted enough to this—,” Mom got a level of disgust in her voice I had never heard from her, “—woman to let her make a toy of you, you had to discover if you could attract some attention more to your liking?”

I blinked. Had that been my motive? “I guess so. I don’t think I knew myself why I did it.” I puzzled a moment more on it. “I met Rory, and he seemed nice, and he asked me to go out with him for pizza—”

“Pizza?”

“It turned into more than that,” I hadn’t gotten into the details of my night with Rory, and I felt my face turning red in anticipation of telling my mom some of what we’d done.

“Are you aware,” she asked, “that he gave you a love-bite, high up on your neck, next to your ear, a little around to the back?”

“What!?” I slapped a hand to the spot. “That’s how I lost the earbobsie-doodle! The rat! Just wait!”

Mom laughed, and so did I.

“You’ll never get your brand on that one, dear,” she warned. “Not if you give him a thousand hickeys. But it might be fun to try.”