On Saturday, Mom dropped me off early at Lea’s. She wanted time to get ready for her date with Donald. Mom never used to wear makeup, but she was wearing blush and mascara now. At least her hair was still long and straight, the way she’d worn it for years.
Mom didn’t really ignore trends like Lea did; she just wasn’t aware of them. She didn’t read popular magazines and didn’t understand my obsession with TV. I liked her easy style, with its leftover hippie vibe. It made me see how she and Dad fit together at one time. I hoped she wasn’t changing.
Donald was divorced with older kids he rarely saw. He was quiet, but he laughed at subtle humor, which I liked about him.
The thing is, though, he didn’t seem anything like my mom. She was quiet, like him. But she was different, special. She had a quirky perceptiveness.
I looked over at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She glanced at me. “Why?”
“You’re quiet. And you’re drumming your fingers on the steering wheel.” Her fingers were long and thin and always capable and busy.
“Oh,” she said, stopping. “Sorry.”
“I’m just wondering what you’re thinking about.”
She hesitated. “You, actually.”
“Oh,” I said, looking out the window. “Sorry I asked.”
“Annie.”
“I really don’t want to know anything I’ve done wrong.”
“I was thinking about next year.”
I twisted my long hair into a bun, then let it go. Why had I asked? I should have known better.
“Annie?”
“What, Mom?”
“I know you don’t want to talk about this.”
I looked out the window. Here it comes.
“But we need to, honey. You need to figure out what we’re doing next year.”
We’re doing? How was it we? “It’s only November.”
“Well, have you at least thought about your plans?” she asked.
“Sure I have.”
“Do you know if you want to apply somewhere?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“So you want to stay in Clear Lake and work?” she asked.
That didn’t sound right to me either, so I shook my head, not having any answers. She was quiet then as we drove over the brown swampy creeks to the west of the lake, but I knew she was getting ready to say something else.
We passed some of the newer condominiums at the edge of the creeks, and I wondered what it would be like to live in one. The area was changing rapidly as the shuttle program took off, becoming something very different from the small prairie towns my grandparents and great-grandparents had been born in. Very few of my relatives had ever left, and those that did usually came back. Mom sure wanted me to leave. But I didn’t know what I wanted. New lines ran through my head:
I yearn to leave, yearn to stay:
Hey, Mom, I know!
I’ll split myself apart,
Run with my legs,
Leave behind my heart.
“Annie, it’s just that, if you’re going,” Mom said, “then you need to get your applications ready.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, why don’t you send them in?” she asked. “Then you can decide later if you want to go.”
I sighed. “It costs money to apply.”
“At least fill out the applications. Be ready.”
“Let’s just drop it right now, Mom.” All that the parents and teachers of seniors seemed to think about was college. This was my life, not theirs. That was the good thing about graduating from high school. No one could tell me what to do.
“Annie,” said Mom, glancing over at me, “don’t get stuck here like I did. You need to get out of here and go someplace else.”
“Teenagers in Someplace Else are talking about how they want to go someplace else. So what’s the point?”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but then stopped and went back to drumming on the wheel, all the way to Lea’s. And then I thought I got the rhythm of her song: What am I, am I, going to do, to do, about An-nie?