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"Then why didn’t you call my apartment?"
"Now that’s dumb. Why would I call your apartment when you’re at my house?"
Something very strange was going on. Nothing my mother was saying made any sense.
"Is Jude there?" I asked.
"No, he went to pick up Maggie from the gym. He should be home in a few minutes. Would you like me to tell him you called?"
"I didn’t call. You called me."
"Oh, that’s right. Silly me."
"Just tell Jude I’ll be there in a few minutes."
"I sure will. I love you."
Now wait just a minute! “I love you.” Where did that come from? We don’t use that kind of language in our family!
"Okay, bye," was all I could say.
That was the first time my mom ever told me she loved me. My dad never did. He never got the chance. I guess my mom decided she better start before it was too late.
Part 9: She Felt So Lonely Among All These Strange People
I don’t think I ever drove so fast in my life. I couldn’t wait to get to Jude's place to find out what the heck was going on. Mom selling the house we grew up in. No one asked me what I thought about that. And what happened to all of our stuff? Where were all my old movie posters? And what about my mom buying a café? And just how did she know to call me at her house at the precise moment I got there? Strange things were happening—unexplainable things—puzzling things—mysterious things.
When I finally made it to Jude’s place, Maggie answered the door. Maggie was my brother’s girlfriend. They had been together for five years when my dad died. What can I say about Maggie? She grew up in Hyde Park, home of Tampa’s old money crowd. She is the one and only offspring from the union of two world-famous physicians. Her father is a neurosurgeon and her mother, a pediatrician. Maggie attended the best private schools in Florida and got her degree, in the ever-so-useful major of Renaissance Art, from the Harvard University. The only reason she 'lowered' herself and dated my brother, a graduate of a mediocre state-run institution of higher education, is because he went to a very expensive private law school, namely Georgetown. I like to think of Maggie as the antithesis of myself. She can be described using the following adjectives (in no particular order): bitchy, self-centered, egotistical, selfish, conniving, deceitful, ruthless, cruel, hard-hearted, amoral, materialistic, mean-spirited, vile and terribly scrawny. (Not that I’m jealous that she’s model thin!) In all fairness, I should say that Maggie probably does have some positive qualities. I’ll be happy to mention them to you when I figure out what they are.
"Well, hello, Dorothy," Maggie said as she opened the door. "You’re looking rather—adipose this evening. Jude told me that you’d be popping by."
I wanted to say, "And you’re looking rather—emaciated, you nasty wench."
But instead, I said, "Hi, Maggie. Where’s my brother?"
"He’ll be right down."
"Can I come in?"
"Certainly."
She opened the door just barely enough for me to squeeze in.
I immediately noticed my mom sitting cross-legged on their living room floor. She was wearing some kind of a white toga/robe garment with a multicolored shawl covering and a red kerchief wrapped around her head. She seemed to be in some kind of a trance.
"Mom," I said.
No response.
"Mom!"
No response.
"MOM!!!!"
"What is it, Dorothy?" my mom finally said. "Can’t you see I’m meditating?"
"Well, I—um—"
"Sit down with me."
"I want to know what’s going on, Mom."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Why are you selling the house?" I said. "What happened to all your stuff? Why are you opening a café? Why are you meditating?"
Then Jude walked in. For once, I was actually glad to see him.
He said, "I think maybe the three of us need to sit down and talk all of this out."
That’s when Jude told me that our dad’s life insurance policy had lapsed. There was no money to pay any of the bills, or even to have a funeral for our father. The only thing my mom had was the equity that had built up in the house. And my mom had never worked a day in her life. She did the stay-at-home mom thing while she raised Jude and me. When we left the nest, she started the classtaking/volunteering phase of life. She took self-improvement classes. She even joined a gym. And she started delivering Meals on Wheels to old people three days a week.
Because necessity is the mother of invention—at least, I think it’s the mother and not the father—my mother made the decision to sell the house and all her stuff and use any profits to buy an old café with a small apartment above it in Y’bor City. Her plan was to fix it up and create a unique theme. She decided to make her café a metaphysical bistro serving a light vegetarian menu, exotic coffees, herbal teas and fresh-squeezed juices and providing card readings, psychics, crystals and other mystical, supernatural, spiritual stuff. And the establishment was to be called Over the Rainbow Metaphysical Café. (No surprise there!)
At first, I thought the idea was total crap, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. Especially when I realized my mom’s underlying, subconscious, metaphoric reason for wanting to open Over the Rainbow Café: to battle the evil Buckstar's in their plot to take over the world. There had to be a good guy out there somewhere.
My mom wanted me to be her business partner. Not that I knew anything about metaphysics or running a café but if it would help rid the world of the evil Buckstar's, I was willing to give it a shot. And my mom sounded so excited about the idea.
That’s when Maggie chimed in, "Do you really think you can make a go of a metaphysical café? I mean, really – isn’t the whole metaphysical thing passe? It reeks of early 1990. And what do the two of you know about running your own business? It’s not all that easy, I’ll have you know."
"How do you know?" I said. "You've never run your own business."
"No, I haven’t." she said. "But as you’re well aware both my mother and father have successful medical practices, so I think I know a little bit more than the two of you."
I wished Jude would have said something, but he never stood up for us when Maggie opened her big pie-trap.
So I said, "Jude, what do you think of Mom’s idea?"
"I think it could work," he said. "If she got appropriate legal and financial counsel to assist her through the process of establishing the business."
When I looked over at my mom, I could tell that Maggie’s smart-ass comments had deflated her enthusiasm. So I said, "I love the idea, Mom, and I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make the café a success. I spend enough time down in Y’bor City as it is; I should be doing something constructive while I’m there."
"Thank you, Pumpkin," she said. "I really appreciate your support."
"I don’t think we should be making any rash decisions," said Jude. "I think it's best that we wait a while until we’ve all had a chance to deal with, well, you know. Deal with—it."
"You mean your father dying," my mom said. "You can go ahead and say it, Jude."
"Now that the autopsy is completed, shouldn’t you be discussing the funeral arrangements? I thought that’s why you all came over. Not to talk about some stupid restaurant," Maggie said.
"It’s