Treading Lightly
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“Yes, Grandma. Mostly A’s.”
Janine heard her mother cough up a disgusting wad of what she could now only picture as a big glob of “snot”—in Craig’s native tongue—on the other end of the phone. She wondered if Craig was picturing it too, and figured he most likely was. How appealing, she thought, as her mother went off on a hacking spree. She could have sworn she heard Craig mumble “Nice,” but it was hard to tell over the amplified expectoration being spewed through the phone line. It made one glad Ma Bell had perfected the resonance of their fiber-optic lines. As the huge conglomerate promised, they made your phone connection so real, it was like you were right next to each other. There’s a lot to be said for not being able to hear a pin drop. “You’re so smart, Craig. Just like your mother used to be.”
And there it was. She had to remind him of his antagonist. Had to bring her up. Janine knew he’d been trying so hard to forget about and ignore her—hence the blaring music to drown out her existence—and now she was right up there on his mind. Her mother was right, he was a smart boy, so Janine knew he’d make both of them pay with the one punishment he could inflict on both of them simultaneously. “I’ll go get her for you, Grandma,” he said before Janine heard him throw the phone down on his bed.
“Yeah, that’s it. Let ’em at each other. They deserve each other! I sure as hell don’t deserve either one of them, but they sure as hell deserve each other,” he muttered to himself as he stomped down the short hallway to her room. Her bedroom door was shut, so he didn’t see her leaning against it, her ear against the hollow door. “She’s working—all the more reason to disturb her—she hates to be interrupted when she’s working,” he said to himself with the pleasure of a nefarious villain who had a deliciously reprehensible plan. With what she could only imagine was an evil smile, he pounded on her door. “PHONE!” he shouted to it.
Head rattling, she called out, “Who is it?” while covering the mouthpiece of the phone tightly with one hand and her mouth with the other so she’d sound distant. Yes, she knew it was a juvenile move, but she did it anyhow.
“Yeah, right. Like I’m going to tell you. If I did, you’d beg me to tell her you were in the shower again. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that! A favor? Yeah, right. I don’t think so,” he mumbled to himself—yet was loud enough for an ear plastered to the door to hear—before she heard him clomp back to his room, slamming his door behind him for good measure.
She picked up her extension, clicking the button and pretending she didn’t know who was on the line. “Hello?”
“Oh, hello dear.”
“Hello, Mother,” she said with a definite lack of enthusiasm. Her son didn’t know how good he had it. He had no idea what it was like having a mother who was a pain in your ass. He may think she was a pain, but she was a poodle as compared to the old attack dog that was her mother.
“You must be working on one of your little books, because I called you three times this week, and you never returned my calls.” This was great. Just what she needed. Fighting with Craig, and now her mother was sticking it to her. But, you had to hand it to Mom. In one fell swoop she had insulted her profession, her writing, her manners, and her capacity as a daughter. All with that one short sentence. Her ex could learn a lot from her mother. At least her mother ragged her quickly and efficiently. Not like Martin. He was much more slow and laborious. Quite amateurish, actually. But after a lifetime with her mother, a seasoned insult comic would appear incompetent and amateurish.
“Sorry, Mother. I’m doing an edit. It’s hard for me to get interrupted. I need to keep focused so mistakes don’t happen.”
“What, like your little books are as important as brain surgery that you shouldn’t get interrupted? Or are you trying to imply that speaking to me is a mistake?” Damn, she was good. Either way, Janine looked like an idiot. In so many words—or rather, so few words—her mother had once again reinforced that her books were unimportant, her career was insignificant, and she sucked as a daughter. If it weren’t so exhausting—and directed at her—she’d probably find it impressive.
“No, Mother. I didn’t say that.”
“I don’t know how you make your living as a writer, when you can’t clearly explain yourself in a simple conversation.”
“Whoa, Granny. Pull in the reins! Even I think that one was a little rough, and currently I’m on the warpath with her almighty highness.”
Janine rubbed her temples and sighed. “Craig, get off the line, would you please?” She hadn’t realized he was listening, but as the saying went, what was good for the goose was good for the gander, so she couldn’t rightly say anything, could she? Plus, she really didn’t mind. She had nothing to hide. Particularly from her son.
When she heard the click of the phone, she assumed he had hung up. “Mother, I’ve had enough fighting for one day. Between Martin and Craig, I was at my limit before you called, and to be quite honest, I don’t have the energy or desire to contend with you right now. If you’d care to, you can try calling in a few days and hopefully by then I’ll be better equipped to handle your hostility.”
Her mother gasped.
“No offense, Mother,” she said as an afterthought.
After harrumphing better than a short, round Englishman wearing a monocle, she said, “How can I not be offended, Janine?”
With a heavy sigh, Janine said what she knew she’d have to say to get the older woman off her back. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m under a lot of stress lately. Please forgive me.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, thankful she was on the phone and not having this conversation in person while having to keep a straight face. She couldn’t have pulled it off if she had to do it face-to-face. As it were, she was smiling wickedly and the sparkle in her eye was a dead giveaway that she was not the least bit sorry.
CHAPTER 3
Her mother’s phone call was long forgotten. The woman was a pain in the butt, but that wasn’t anything new. The minute she’d hung up, it was off her mind. This edit was important and she needed to finish it, so she’d worked all night. When Janine finally looked at her clock, she was surprised to see it was 2:23 a.m.
“Guess it’s time to call it a night,” she said to herself as she shut down her computer. The eerie light it had cast no longer illuminated the surrounding space, throwing her into total darkness. Taking a deep breath, she walked out of her room, not needing any light down the short hall toward Craig’s room. She’d done this a million times before.
A faint yellow band glowed from underneath his door, and she surmised that he’d fallen asleep with his light on again.
Opening the door slowly so it wouldn’t creak, she gazed at her son sprawled fully dressed across his bed. She crossed the room silently, thinking he looked like an angel in repose, and knelt beside the bed so she wouldn’t wake him. Carefully she untied the laces of his government-regulation black boots and gently tugged them off. God, his feet were huge. And they stank, too! Keeping those mammoth puppies penned up in those hot, festering, black leather encasements didn’t help matters. The boy’s feet needed air circulating around them.
With that thought in mind, she removed his wet, sweaty socks and threw a blanket over his prone body, kissing the top of his head and smoothing back his bangs as she did every night after he fell asleep.
“Mommy loves you,” she whispered. It was her ritualistic mantra that she uttered to the sleeping boy nightly.
She stood for a few minutes, watching him sleep, letting the sight calm her. When she felt her body relax and lose some of the strain that seemed to be ever present in her upper back, she reached over and turned the light switch off with a click.
Closing the door silently behind her, she left his room to do the other thing she did nightly. Raid the kitchen.
Heading straight for the junk-food cabinet to check out what was left, she grabbed a fistful of strawberry Twizzlers, and popped a stray purple jelly bean she’d found on the bottom of the shelf into her mouth before realizing what she’d just done. She spent a couple minutes trying to calculate when that uncovered jelly bean could’ve possibly been purchased, not remembering the last time she’d bought a bag of jelly beans, then quickly drowned out any possible contamination worries by scarfing down approximately thirteen licorice sticks, hoping that would obscure or perhaps overwhelm any bad pollutants the one measly grape-flavored jelly bean might’ve caused. She closed the cabinet door before padding back to her room to attempt sleep. It was hard for her to unwind when she was in edit mode. She held an entire novel in her head, and needed to make sure every thread, every action, every sentence fit perfectly. It took her almost two hours, but by approximately four in the morning she finally fell asleep.
As she’d tossed and turned, she had again been struck by the relative ease at which she could make things work out perfectly on paper, but in her real life, her existence was a mess. Try as she might, she couldn’t control things as she could in her books. And anyone who knew her would agree that she always tried. It wasn’t that she was a control freak. Well, maybe it was. But things just never seemed to work out for her the way they did for her characters.
For example when she woke up the next morning, she’d trodden into the kitchen, eyes crusted over with sleep, hair sticking out haphazardly on the right side and plastered against her head on the left, heading for the coffee machine. He was her only true love now—Mr. Coffee. At least at that hour. Ben & Jerry’s came in at a close second, but not first thing in the morning. Perhaps second thing. But not first.
On her way to her beloved Señor Café—she saw him as the Latino type, deep, dark, rich, fiery, and with a kick that woke her up quickly—she passed the kitchen table with the pad. Her heart soared every morning when she read the short note from her son, which had become a tradition they’d started when he was old enough to go to the bus stop each morning without her guidance.
That decision had been more of a negotiation than an outright decision. She’d felt he was too young to go to the bus stop alone, and he’d insisted he was “big” enough. After a few dozen extremely mature instances of “are not,” “am too,” “are not,” “am too,” she’d finally confessed in her most pathetic whine that she’d miss him. That’s when he came up with the note idea. “That way you’ll be able to keep me with you all day, Mom,” he’d said.
She’d almost cried when he’d said that because she was so proud of him. “Who’s the grown-up and who’s the kid?” she’d said to him that morning so long ago as she ushered him out the door before closing it. She remembered watching him through the peephole until she couldn’t see him anymore. When he was gone, she’d turned, leaned against the door, and cried because her baby was growing up.
Now her baby was well on his way to manhood. In some religions and cultures, he would be considered a man in a few short weeks.
She pulled the pad to her while forcing her right eye open by prying it apart with her fingers—ripping out a few eyelashes in the process. Thankfully, her left eye wasn’t also crusted shut. Just the right.
She squeezed her eyes open and shut a few times to get them to focus before trying to read his message. Nothing. Nada. The pad was blank.
So…he still wasn’t talking to her.
“Damn it! And damn you, Martin, for starting this little war!” Although she was angry at her ex, her heart sank because she hadn’t gotten a note from Craig. He always wrote something before he left for school, and she loved his sweet notes. They started her day and made her smile.
There’d be no smiling today. “Thank you, you rotten, selfish bastard!” she said aloud to her ex, hoping he could hear her.
On to Mr. Coffee. Once she was fully pumped up with high octane, she could begin her morning ritual.
Her morning ritual had changed dramatically these past few months.
It had all started when she hurt her back. Thinking it was a pulled muscle, she’d tried to ignore it, but within minutes it had gotten so bad she was crippled in pain. That’s when she’d figured it might be more than a pulled muscle. She didn’t have one ounce of medical training, but she didn’t have to be a medical genius to know that if one minute she’d been fine, and the next she could barely move, things weren’t right. When she could finally get herself out the door of her apartment to see the doctor, she’d begged him for muscle relaxers, hoping to ease the excruciating pain.
“Not so fast, little lady,” Dr. Harvey Rogers had said.
“What? No drugs?” she’d shrieked in panic.
“Yes, I’ll give you a prescription, but by the way you’re standing, I’d like to get some X-rays, too.”
“X-rays? It sounds expensive. Is it covered by my plan?”
“Yes, Janine.” He’d rolled his eyes. “But does it make a difference? If this were Craig’s back, would you ask that question?”
“Of course not! How could you even ask me that? If this happened to Craig, I would do anything he needed. No matter what the cost. And you know that!”
“Yes, I do. And you deserve the same quality of care. So don’t tick me off again by asking another stupid question, Janine. If I tell you I want an X-ray, just go get the damn X-ray!”
She’d smiled at him. He’d been her doctor for as long as she could remember. “Yes, sir.”
The results had come back a few days later, and instead of telling her over the phone, he’d made her come back into his office. She had no idea what to expect—and her mind had included a plethora of possibilities—but what he’d told her was the furthest thing from her guess.
If she’d been paying attention to the clues, she would have known before being told. She’d known Craig was growing, but it seemed her height was diminishing as well. Then she’d had that sudden pain—stopping her completely. It had hurt to stand, walk, sit and lie down. There was no position she could assume that would give her relief. It hadn’t felt like a pulled back muscle. It had been too debilitating. In her heart she’d known it was something else, which was why she’d dragged herself down to the doctor’s office to begin with.
“Osteoporosis,” she’d shrieked when Harvey Rogers gave her the bad news. “How in the hell did I get osteoporosis? This is ridiculous. There must be some mistake. I don’t have osteoporosis.”
“You do, and it’s bad, Janine. I’m not playing here. One sneeze and you could break your spine. Clip your pelvis into a counter’s corner, and you could be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”
At the time she’d thought he must be kidding, and had said, “Stop making this up, Harvey! I’m really in no mood for jokes. I’ve got a deadline, and stress up my ass! I don’t need your stupid gags today.”
“Honey,” he’d said far too seriously for her comfort, “I’m sorry, but I’m not joking. Your spine is collapsing upon itself. You didn’t pull a muscle, honey, you fractured your spine.”
She’d remembered looking at him as if he were nuts. “Check the report again, Harvey.”
“I’ve checked and double-checked it. I even put a call in to the lab’s head technician to see if there could possibly be some mix-up.”
“And?”
“And, there’s no mix-up, no mistake.” The look he’d given her was steeped with sadness and concern. “My dear, you’ve got the stubbornness of a two-year-old toddler, the eating habits of an eight-year-old child, the figure of a sixteen-year-old boy, the mentality of a thirty-year-old wildcat, the mouth of a forty-year-old sailor, and the bones of a seventy-five-year-old woman.”
He’d tried to use humor to help defray the emotionalism of the diagnosis, but she’d been thrown into a state of shock when she’d found he wasn’t kidding around. “How did this happen?”
He’d shrugged. “You’re genetically preprogrammed.”
“What the hell does that mean, Harvey?”
“You’re tall, thin, Caucasian, and breast-fed a child you had later in life. You’re the poster child for this disease.”
“It’s a disease?” she’d gasped.
“Osteoporosis? Sure is, honey,” he’d said quietly. Too quietly.
He’d scared her. “So what happens now?”
“Well,” he’d said slowly, “now you have to use that stubbornness of yours to get yourself on a regimen of eating right and exercising to get those bones as strong as we can.”
“Can we do that?”
“We can try. But I have to tell you, there’s no easy or magic solution to this, Janine. You’re going to have to work at it. Diligently. And daily.”
She’d made a face.
“Look, if you need their help, I’m willing to put a call in to your mother and also one to Martin if you feel you need support with this.”
She’d gasped again, only this time, not in shock but in horror. Clutching her hand to her chest, she’d said, “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh no?” he’d said, eyeing her directly. “If it’s the difference between your doing as I instruct or not, you’re damned straight I’ll call in the troops. This is serious, Janine. I can’t stress this enough.”
“Okay already, I get it, Harvey. Cool the threats and theatrics.”
“You need to follow my orders or I’m going to call in the hounds.”
“Hounds my ass…they’re more like pit bulls!”
“Like you’re not one of those yourself,” he’d said with a chuckle. “Now listen up and listen good…” was the start to his long list of things she’d had to eat daily, do daily, and take weekly. He’d also given her a prescription that came with a warning list so long it had scared the hell out of her. After taking the pill she couldn’t lean over, bend over, lie down, eat fiber, take medicine, drink anything other than water, or ingest food, to list a few. It was scary, and had made her realize the magnitude of this whole thing.
Harvey had been right. It wasn’t a joke.
After that, she’d done some pretty thorough research via the Internet, and everything he’d said was true and accurate. Everything. From her genetic predisposition, to her chances of future fractures and damage based on that current level of bone density. He was also right on the money with his ordered advice on how to fight any further damage through diet, exercise, and the latest medication he’d prescribed to help stop and possibly reverse bone loss.
Now, as he’d said, it was her job to follow that strict course of therapy.
That fateful day, on her way home from Harvey’s office, she’d stopped at a grocery store and bought milk, yogurt, ice cream, and one of each of their stocked cheeses—Romano, Parmesan, Monterey Jack, mozzarella, provolone, Swiss, jalapeño jack, American, Muenster, white cheddar, and regular cheddar in mild, medium, sharp, extra sharp, New York, and Vermont.
The other thing she’d done that day was call a used-sporting-goods shop to find a reasonably priced, secondhand treadmill. The first call was all it took.
“I’ve got plenty to choose from, lady. Come on down and you can try ’em out,” the man had said.
Not knowing what she was looking for, or what the differences could possibly be, she’d told him to send a good, reliable yet reasonably priced machine that wouldn’t take up too much space in her already cramped bedroom.
“Ya mean the space-savin’, basic model?”
Sounded good to her. “Yes, that’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Ya need incline, preprogramming, or anything over ten miles per hour?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you run?”
“No. I’ll be walking.”
“Do you want it to move up and down simulatin’ hills?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Okay, lady. I’ve got a good, plain, basic, space-savin’ machine I think’ll be poifect for ya.”
He’d given her the price, including shipping, and told her his guy could deliver it the next day. She’d given him her credit-card number and told him she’d be there waiting.
She’d decided not to tell Craig about the osteoporosis thing. At least not yet. Not until she’d gotten herself on the right path to making herself healthier. She knew she might not be able to make it better, but she could try not to let it get too much worse—possibly slow it down a bit.
That very afternoon Craig had noticed something was awry.
“What’s with all the cheese, Mom?”
“I had a craving. And you know, Craig, it wouldn’t hurt you if you ate a little calcium, too.”
He’d shrugged. “Sure.” The boy ingested anything that didn’t scurry out of his reach, what did he care if it had nutrients, minerals or calcium in it? Well, now that she’d discovered the dire results of eating a calcium-deprived diet, she’d make sure her own flesh and blood didn’t fall into that dark pit.
“Eat some cheese,” she’d called as she tried to empty a corner of her room for the treadmill being delivered the next day. She had no idea how big the machine would be so she cleared as much space as possible, attempting to additionally free up a pathway for the deliverymen to carry it in.
“Hey, cool. What’s up?” Craig had asked upon seeing her activity.
“What? Something has to be up for me to be cleaning my room?”
He’d raised an eyebrow at her. Only one eyebrow. She didn’t know how he did that but was always fascinated when he did, because she thought it was nifty and creepy at the same time. She didn’t have the talent, and often wondered if Martin had the one-eyebrow-raising endowment. She’d wondered, but never enough to ask the bastard when she had the divine pleasure of talking with, to, or at him.
“Okay. So maybe I am cleaning up for a reason. I’ve decided to go on a health kick.”
Craig had laughed. “That’s funny, Mom.”
“I mean it!”
“I’m sure you do. But for how long this time? That’s the real question.”
“Forever.”
“You say that every time, Mom. You’ve said that the last seventeen times you’ve gone on a permanent health kick.”
“Well, this time is different!” she’d huffed, insulted by her son’s lack of faith in her word.
He’d done the one-eyebrow thing again. “How so?”
“Because I mean it this time.”
“Unlike all the other times you’ve said it in the past?”
She’d remembered getting annoyed. “Is this you encouraging me, here? Or is it you trying to talk me out of it before I even attempt to start my new healthy lifestyle?”
His hands had flown up in the air. “Hey, don’t go all postal on me, Mom. I’m just trying to gauge how committed you are to this—your latest—healthy-lifestyle kick.”
“I’ll tell you how committed I am to it, you big doubting Thomas, you! I bought a treadmill.”
He’d looked as if she’d slapped him in the face. “What?”
“You heard correctly,” she’d said snootily. “I bought a treadmill. I’m cleaning my room so when it’s delivered tomorrow, there will be a place for it.”
He’d nodded his head slowly. “Good for you, Mom. I’ve been trying to get you to do some exercise for a while now, and I’m glad you’re finally listening.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve nagged me long enough, plus it’s hard keeping up with such an active son. I had to start doing something.”
He’d grinned crookedly. “Good for you. I’m proud of you,” he’d said as he left her room so she could finish clearing and cleaning.
“Well, I haven’t done anything yet,” she’d called after him.
“You will, Mom. If you set your mind to it, you’ll do it!” he’d yelled back.
“Hey, that’s my line,” she’d whispered to herself.
She shook her head at the memory. And now, months later, here she was, walking on a treadmill every day, just as she’d foretold. Who would have guessed extortion—and the threat of deformity—would be such a big motivator?
Done with her coffee, still depressed at her lack of morning, son-written note to cheer her up and start her day, she ambled back to her room and looked disgustedly at the treadmill shoved in the corner. “Looks like it’s just you and me, bud,” she said to it as if it were a person. It was the only thing she related to besides her son these days. And now that Craig was no longer talking to her, it was all she had left. Too bad it wasn’t a man. It would’ve been ideal: it was hard, built, always ready for her, made her sweat, got her blood pumping, and never said a word! Their woman/machine association was probably the closest thing to a perfect relationship she’d ever had in her entire lifetime. “And you don’t leave your crap all over the floor, either,” she said to it as she climbed on after swiping the hand towel she’d used yesterday off the floor. She’d used it to mop up the sweat that had poured from her during her laborious exertion, but after she smelled it and found it wasn’t too pungent, she shoved it into the towel-holder hole, figuring what difference did it make? She’d take a shower right after the torture session anyhow.