One Tough Cookie by Emily Spreng Lowery

    “This is your final warning,” Aunt Bethany told my mother. “Next time I find a stranger passed out on your bed, naked as a jaybird, Cory’s moving in with me. And that’s that.”

Mom and I were silent. My stomach lurched.

Aunt Bethany had been telling my mother for months to shape up: that when you had a fifth-grade boy at home, a weekly schedule that consisted of one night of heavy drinking, two days of recovery, and four overnight shifts as a mini-mart manager was not acceptable. I argued that mom usually called to make sure I brushed my teeth and did my homework – and she always kept us well stocked with Twix bars – but Aunt Bethany dismissed my protests with a frustrated sigh.

I’m sure Aunt Bethany meant well, but she was far too concerned with our business. When her heels clicked up the driveway and her signature “Yoo-hoo!” filled the house, there was always trouble ahead. First she’d slide a gross casserole (topped with tofu or wheat germ) into the refrigerator, then grill us about Saturday nights, when my mother went out and all hell broke loose.

I’d heard my mother complain that the bartenders cut her off almost as soon as she arrived, but apparently this wasn’t soon enough. More than once Aunt Bethany had to bail her out of jail for starting a fight. Mom didn’t drink and drive, but she had no qualms about hitchhiking. Upon arriving home, she’d wake our neighbors by pounding on their doors, mistaking their houses for ours. Mr. Blake from across the street didn’t crack a smile when he pointed out our rundown one-story ranch, but my mom’s come-and-go men laughed as if my mother were the funniest woman they’d ever met.  Aunt Bethany said my mom wasn’t happy. That she used alcohol to mask her pain and that living with her wasn’t good for my development. There were times I’d wondered if she were right.

Until I remembered that Aunt Bethany didn’t know everything. For instance, she found it odd I followed figure skating rather than football. But she didn’t know that Penny Heinemann always watched with me, and that sometimes I could get close enough to smell Penny’s apple-scented hair as we watched those perfect pairs spin across the ice.

* * *

It had first hit me in kindergarten that other boys didn’t wake up every Sunday wondering which man was using their toilet. Not that I minded much. Most of the guys were OK – except Bobby McDaniel, who peed in my closet whenever he got drunk. But Bobby McDaniel wasn’t around for long. None of them were.

“If any of those men touch you or hit you, you tell me right away,” Aunt Bethany made me promise.

“Mom would never let anyone hurt me,” I protested.

“One would hope,” she said.

Aunt Bethany went ahead and turned her sewing room into a spare bedroom, and asked me twice if I liked the curtains she’d embroidered with tiny racecars. I was running out of time to fix my mother.

As far as I could tell, she only drank when she was out, and only went out to find a new man. So what she needed, I reasoned, was a steady boyfriend.

* * *

            Jeffrey Kaiser had been my mother’s first boyfriend. His senior picture was located squarely between Julia Jones’ and Terry Kalmer’s in her high-school yearbook, and a carefully drawn red heart surrounded his face. I found the dusty leather-bound book behind an old stack of Readers Digests, and my babysitter, Leanne, who was in tenth grade, called it a “thrilling discovery.” But my mother just rolled her eyes when she saw the book and said, “That was another life, hon. Forget about it.”

But I didn’t forget about it. I imagined my mom as one of those love-struck teenagers who starred in Leanne’s favorite movies, where the girls sat around giggling with friends and used permanent markers to declare their love.

I asked Aunt Bethany where Jeffrey Kaiser lived, and she said he had moved away after high school and she hadn’t seen him since. I figured he probably had a job and a family and didn’t care diddly squat about us – at least until Leanne told me that “first love was true love” and “the flame never fades.” Afterwards, I began fantasizing that he still “carried a torch” for my mother and that he’d eventually return. When Leanne sent me to bed early so she could spend “quality time” with her boyfriend, Zachary, I stayed awake making up elaborate scenarios involving Jeffrey Kaiser showing up on our doorstep with a bunch of flowers. My mother would call him “darling” and she would watch out the kitchen window as he played catch with me in the backyard. Not that I’d ever been much good at catch, but I knew Jeffrey Kaiser would bring out my best.

            The summer before fifth grade, we miraculously ran into Jeffrey Kaiser at the drug store. I knew him right away. He had filled out a little and lost some hair, but other than that, he looked exactly the same. My heart pounded. When he told us he was back in town for his mother’s fiftieth birthday party, I knew my prayers had been answered. At least until my mother ruined it all: “You always were a momma’s boy.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, not cruel, but she certainly wasn’t “smitten,” as Aunt Bethany would say.

            I had imagined Jeffrey Kaiser for so long and so hard that I could practically read his mind: “What happened to the sweet girl with barrettes in her hair that I fell in love with?” Nowadays my mother pulled her bone-straight hair into a careless ponytail, but I knew about the barrettes from spending hours with that yearbook. And I couldn’t even count the number of people who had murmured, “Your mother used to be such a sweet girl …” before trailing off in a way that made it clear she wasn’t sweet anymore.

Jeffrey Kaiser hesitated before saying we should stop by the KC Hall for some cake, and I almost threw myself under the meat counter in embarrassment when my mother croaked out a laugh and said, “Honey, unless there’s a shot of tequila involved, I don’t haul my rear across town for anyone.”

* * *

When my mother’s boyfriend Tim Donavan found out my fifth-grade class was saving its change for the starving kids in Africa, he crushed a cigarette butt with the toe of his boot, then dug in his pocket for some crumpled bills and said I could keep what was left if I ran up to the mini-mart for a another pack of smokes and some pork rinds. I put the remaining two dollars and thirteen cents into our classroom’s donation box, which already held twice as much as the other fifth grade’s. Our seeming generosity was primarily due to Penny Heinemann, who had found her father’s dirty magazines and demanded a large sum of starving-kid money in exchange for her silence. Penny’s dad also bought her mom a gigantic diamond ring as “insurance” in case Penny cracked.

Leanne said a ring changes everything: “It makes the future, like, so much brighter.” For weeks now, Leanne and Zachary had been shopping for promise rings, and I had discovered the importance of cut, color, and clarity. I was also learning the importance of sacrifice. “Zachary’s, like, selling both his car stereo and comic book collection to buy it for me,” she said proudly. Then Leanne pulled out the bundle of jewelry catalogs she carried around in her backpack, and together we paged through them and circled our favorites.

That was another thing Aunt Bethany kept bugging me about. She said Leanne was teaching me that overpriced jewelry was the key to a good relationship. I told her that was stupid. Still, it got me thinking. Leanne used to talk about Zachary all the time, but now rings were her only topic of conversation, and I’d never seen her happier. Penny said her mom constantly stared at the new ring, and managed to smile even when Penny’s dad was hours late for dinner.

I was suddenly inspired.

The ring was more important than the man! And if I were able to buy my mother one as beautiful as those I’d seen in Leanne’s catalogs and as sparkly as the one Penny’s mother now wore – maybe my mom would be happy, too, and have no more “pain” to “mask.” Maybe she’d stay home with me on Saturday nights, eat frozen Twix bars, and make crank calls to Aunt Bethany like we used to do all the time before mom became a stupid overnight manager. As an image of the overflowing money box at school popped into my mind, I suddenly wished I’d kept all my nickels and dimes. But then again, I reasoned, I could have never saved enough on my own, and all my friends were busy helping the starving kids. But what about my mom? She needed help, too, and it wasn’t her fault no one set out a money box on her behalf.

It was then that my plan took shape.

I almost missed my mother’s ex-boyfriend Joshua Hinks, who had moonlighted as a petty thief masquerading as a plumber; I would have welcomed a bit of advice. But even without Joshua Hinks, a perfect opportunity arose during the week I was assigned to clap erasers during recess. After lunch, I high-tailed it back to the classroom to fetch the erasers. Mrs. Griswold had left the key to the money cabinet in her desk, and it took only a second to shove it in my pocket. Afterwards, I took those erasers outside and clapped them together with a vengeance, chalk filling my lungs with a satisfying itch. My mother’s boyfriend Brian Kemp made a copy of the key for me at the hardware shop where he worked, and the next day I replaced the original when no one was looking.

            Leanne had made it clear that when it came to ring-buying, sacrifice was necessary, and betraying Penny Heinemann was the greatest one I could imagine. So I waited for two weeks, until it was Penny’s turn to clap erasers. I offered to get them for her and then tried to keep my hands from trembling as I poured the coins and bills into my backpack. When Mrs. Griswold noticed the money was missing, Penny’s eyes flashed with fury and she was quick to rat me out. She told everyone I had been the one in the classroom alone.

            But I denied everything. Penny slit her eyes and pursed her lips and said she’d never forgive me if I didn’t come clean, but I swallowed my regrets and forced myself to believe that in the end, it would all be worth it.

* * *

I’d been told a little about the man my mother fell for after she and Jeffrey Kaiser broke up; the rest I pieced together on my own. Like most 19-year-olds, my mother had big dreams of a big life. She met Leo Reece when he came to the door on Thanksgiving morning and tried to sell her family what Aunt Bethany called a “fancy-shmancy” vacuum cleaner. They were all duly impressed when the machine effortlessly sucked up the black dust he’d scattered on the carpet, and they invited him to stay for dinner. The salesman had a knack for witty chitchat, and by the time pumpkin pie was dished out, my mother knew he was a man meant for big things; two weeks later she followed him to Memphis.

But life there was no picnic. Leo Reece was on the road for weeks at a time, and it turned out that being married to the top vacuum salesman of the year was no fun if he was gone all the time. When she knocked on her parents’ door two years later with me on her hip, her eager eyes had dulled and life’s expectations had been altered.

* * *

I’d been optimist over the summer, when my mother’s boyfriend Ron Higgins stuck around for 27 days. “My mother snores,” I told him.

“I know,” he said.

“And I don’t get good grades. I’m bound to be a life-long financial burden.” Leanne said all children were, and she and Zachary planned to only have one.

Ron said, “I know that, too.”

We were silent then. I dared to be hopeful; I liked Ron. Maybe if he stayed, my mother would be happy and Aunt Bethany would stop hovering.

            Then he took a deep breath. “Son, I appreciate your concern. But you gotta know your mother and I aren’t in it for the long haul.”

“But you’ve been here for weeks!”

He gave me a wry smile. “You’re mature for your age, so I’m not gonna dick you around with a lot of bullshit. Truth is, even if I was interested in sticking around, you’re mom ain’t the type who, well, wants men to stick.”

            “Oh.”

            “She’s a tough cookie. A good time. But she only has room for one man in her life.” He winked at me.

I didn’t wink back.

* * *

I asked my mother’s boyfriend Charlie Dobb to help pick out the ring. “Where’d ya get this money?” he asked.

            I told him my father had sent it with instructions to buy my mother something nice for her birthday, and that I’d added five dollars of my own. Charlie Dobb raised his eyebrows. “Thought your father was long gone.”

            I shrugged. “Guess not.”

            He agreed to help, and together we surveyed the cases of jewelry.

“She already has a ring,” he said.

            That was true. She kept it in a ceramic ashtray I’d made her. She said it was from my daddy and that she was keeping it for a rainy day.

            “What about diamond earrings?” he suggested. “Every special lady should have a special pair.”

            I eventually surrendered to his logic, and then he sent me outside so he could haggle with Hank the jeweler. My mother gasped when she opened the velvet box and said, “They’re beautiful.” She hugged me tight.

The stolen money was all anyone in my class could talk about. Penny, of course, kept insisting she wasn’t the culprit, but I refused to budge, either. “I can’t believe you threw me under the bus!” she said, an expression straight from the mouth of our classmate David Dahm. I’d seen them walking home from school together, and it grated on me that I’d been replaced so quickly.

            Sacrifice sucked.

            My mother and I were called in for a conference with Mrs. Griswold and Mr. Butler, the principal. “It’s not just those starving children in Africa you’re stealing from,” Mrs. Griswold told me. “You’re cheating yourself of an opportunity to accept the consequences of your actions like a man.”

            I looked down at my hands without a twinge of guilt. The last thing I wanted to be was a man. Being a boy was hard enough.

            Mr. Butler cleared his throat and turned his gaze to my mother. “Cory’s a good boy. We know that. But even the best kids make mistakes.”

“What mistake are you referring to?” my mother asked innocently.

“You know what I’m talking about, Barbara. And it has everything to do with that pair of diamond earrings you’re wearing.”

It occurred to me that I shouldn’t have bragged to classmates about my father’s generous gift.

My mother raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see how they’re any business of yours.”

            “It’s all of our business if they were $302.” Mr. Butler gave my mother a meaningful look.

            “You sonofabitch. These earrings weren’t bought with that money.”

            I knew my mother could feel the sweat on my hands.

            “He bought them at the Diamond Dugout. Call them and ask how much they cost,” she dared. “If it matches the amount you just quoted, then we have something to discuss.”

            And so there was the pulling of the phone book out of Mr. Butler’s desk and the flipping to the right page and then the terrifying seconds between when I knew the phone was ringing and when I heard Mr. Butler say, “It’s Larry Butler at Warrenwood Elementary. How are you, Hank?” Pause. “Good, good, good. Glad to hear it. Now Hank, we’re having a bit of a problem regarding a customer of yours, Cory Reece.”

            Pause.

            “So Cory was in the other day? And a pair of diamond earrings was purchased?” Mr. Butler sounded smug. But his self-satisfied smile faded suddenly. Then: “Thank you, Hank. You’ve been a big help.”

            He hung up the phone and was silent for a few moments before looking up at us. “Those earrings you’re wearing are cubic zirconium. They cost $3.25.”

            “But that’s imposs – ” I gasped, cut off by my mother’s sudden death grip.

             I bit down on my lip until I could feel blood.

            “Like I told you,” my mother said, coolly, “these earrings were a gift, and they weren’t bought with that money.”

* * *

            Together, my mother and I drove home from the school.

            “I don’t know what happened! I did steal that money,” I blurted.

            “I know,” she said. Her voice was unusually gentle.

            “I wanted to make you happy. Leanne said a ring changes everything, but Charlie said –”

            “I know.”

            We pulled into our driveway. She turned off the ignition and looked at me. She took off the earrings and together we gazed down at them shimmering in her palm. “You were scammed.” She wiggled her nose like she always did when she got nervous. “I figured it out when Charlie got a new TV.” She lit a cigarette, took a long drag and then blew it out the open window. “You were an easy target. And Charlie’s an asshole. But …” She put the cigarette in the ashtray and leaned so close our noses almost touched. “I couldn’t love these more if they’d cost a million bucks.”

            I burned with pride.

            Unfortunately, Aunt Bethany got the whole story out of me a few weeks later. She made me tell Mr. Butler and Mrs. Griswold what had happened, and I was stuck scraping the gum off the bottom of desks over Christmas vacation to work off the money. But the funny thing was, no one brought it up again after the holidays. Apparently I had been absolved, and there was a new scandal to take its place: Mr. Butler and Mrs. Griswold were caught, as Leanne would say, “in a compromising position” in the supply closet by two seventh-graders.

Other things changed, too. My mother said she needed to “get her shit together” and suggested I stay with Aunt Bethany a while. I told her it wasn’t fair to punish me for her “shit” to which she responded, “It’s not a punishment. It’s a promise.”

For a while I hated those earrings and knew it would have all ended differently if I’d bought the ring instead. But as it turned out, living with Aunt Bethany wasn’t too bad. She made me breakfast every morning, and I appreciated the kindness behind her misguided suggestion that I take ice-skating lessons. I eventually quit worrying about my mother’s escapades on Saturday evenings, and even learned to sleep late on Sundays. When she took me out for pizza, she never smelled of alcohol, but, still, no one ever mentioned me leaving Aunt Bethany’s.

I was secretly relieved.

Since my life of crime had come to an abrupt end with the starving-kid money, I started cutting lawns in junior high and saved every cent I earned until I was able to present my mom with a second velvet box. This time, just like the first time, she held me tight and simply said, “They’re beautiful.” But she didn’t immediately take the old ones off, as I thought she would. And she didn’t have the new ones on the next time I saw her, either. Instead, every time we got together, it was the original pair of earrings that hung in her ears like a prize, and when she reached up to touch them, it was a reminder of something only she and I could understand.