A Lucky Turn

“Your mother is crazy.” I felt my stomach clench like a fist. Jen Brauer’s words unexpectedly hissed in my ear as she placed herself strategically behind me. Suddenly, I was caught between a rock and a hard place; my eyes became fixed on Jen’s harsh reflection as I inserted my coins into the vending machine outside the middle-school cafeteria. “What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to be casual, though my heartbeat had suddenly increased by about ten beats per second. The vending machine deposited my bottled water with a loud ker-chunk, and I grabbed it, shoving it into my book-bag, attempting to ignore the awkwardness of the moment. “I saw your mother in the library last week,” Jen began, falling in line with me as I walked down the hall, cringing inside. I knew what was coming. “She was screaming at the clerk because she owed a big fine, and they wouldn’t let her take out a book. She kept yelling that she had rights, and that she paid taxes. All kinds of crazy stuff.” Jen eyed me with contrived pity. “I almost didn’t tell you, but I decided that you should know.” As Jen began to relay still more details of the encounter, I swallowed hard. I had heard all about it from Mom when she had gotten home from the library. She had ranted and raved about it for two hours, and then paced for another hour before she was calm enough to sit down and be rational. Still, she was unable to sleep that night, and as I lay in bed I could hear her moving around and talking softly to herself. When I had gotten up the next morning, she had pounced on me, handing me letters that she had written to everyone from the library board to the mayor. I had tried to convince her not to send them, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I had waited until her attention was focused on something else—I didn’t have long to wait, because she jumped from topic to topic in an unending stream—and then threw the letters away. She had looked for them for a few minutes, but then switched to a tirade about my father. It had gone on like that almost incessantly for a week. She hardly ever stopped talking and pacing, never relaxing. She seemed to have an abundance of energy, and from what I could see, she wasn’t sleeping much at night. It was bad enough for me to go through that scene with Mom, but why did Jen Brauer have to see her lose control? Everyone knew Jen was a gossip. In my embarrassment, I endured Jen’s account of the details of my mother’s behavior and then flinched as she said how sorry she was for me, having to put up with a mother “like that.” I didn’t believe she was sorry for a second. I knew better. “I feel sorry for you, Jen,” I countered in an attempt to salvage my dignity. I stopped outside the ladies’ restroom, grasped my book bag to my chest like a shield, and gave Jen Brauer my parting shot, hoping that my words would unsettle her as much as her words had been a troubling nightmare for me. “Spreading stories about other people is about as low as you can get. It’s obvious you have too much time on your hands.” I made my escape, pushing myself through the door to the girls’ lavatory while blinking back hot tears of embarrassment and humiliation. Glancing in the direction of the stalls, I saw that I was alone. I leaned my head against the cold, tiled wall and let the tears come.