Still Life with Spiky Plant

-- This is an excerpt from what will hopefully be a larger work.

Discontent. The word stewed inside Clem. Her chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh and in the mental journal she kept in her mind, thought “Today is a day just like any other.” The grunts from the San Man’s weakness with his ex-wife kept surfacing, interrupting what she hoped would be more productive thinking about her situation. Here she was grounded—and at her age. What next? Pimple cream and trips to the mall? She was Clem the Clandestine, not Clem the Maudlin Teen. The opportunity for the San Man to play a starring role in her life would remain a dream.  But the San Man spoke her language! Maybe she ought to be cultivating her style more. If she could go home, at least she could raid her mother’s closet for better outfits. She’d nix the lipstick though. Too messy and bright. Maybe her make-up calling card could be blush or even better, rose water. Instead she had to go to bank, so her mother could keep an eye on her, as if she were just… ordinary. Ah, discontent.

Clem thought of the bank where her mother worked as The Pantheon of Money, an impenetrable stone fortress where one walked up the wide granite stairs to conduct his transactions. This sort of bank had been built when the world assumed the customer would be the character Clem named The Man.  The act of ascending to the money would make The Man feel his assets were secure. The Man would walk into the dark oak lobby, across the shiny tiles, and approach the velvet rope stantions that marked a short line—just long enough to give a sense of importance, but not inconvenience. A beautiful, young, and female teller would greet The Man, and the two of them would conduct official business. The teller would then finish the experience by counting off the man’s crisp bills in tens, twenties, and fifties.  Here, inside this Pantheon built to house the money of The Man, Clem positioned herself on one of the leather cushioned benches, partially hidden by a spiky plant that would live long and perfectly preserved into the next millennium. Now, just as Clem had done as a small child, she waited for her mother to complete her shift as a loan officer.

Across the wood and glass cubicles, Clem could see her mother on the phone. Her mother’s great mass of salt and pepper hair was held in place by two ornate chopsticks; and she was wearing a faded blue satin shirt with a mandarin collar, and, of course, her trademark lipstick.  In this kind of themed get-up, Clem imagined her mother could be working a coat check for high-class establishment of ill repute, a place that required a secret handshake for entry, not handling mortage loans at the Pantheon Bank of the Man, and certainly not the kind of woman who argued over keeping ratty shoeboxes and plastic bags. Her mother’s grey and beige-toned bank colleagues scuttled among their cubicles none the wiser. No one at the bank cared or knew about It.

Even though they were outside 165 Whipple Drive, It remained with Clem.  Though she had the vaulted ceilings of the bank above her, the phantom stacks still crowded her, the stench clung inside her nostrils. Clem couldn’t even savor her time away from It, because she knew she’d always have to return. Not that she could enjoy anything today. What was the point of anything anymore? Why bother? Why couldn’t she just find some wealthy family who needed a governess?  In the 19th century, she would be of an age, where she was employable. Perhaps, it would just be best if the San Man and his ex-wife reunited so that Clem could have two young charges.  She would keep the children clean, safe, and above all, well read.

Before she could fashion the passionate literary affair she would have with the San Man as a governess,  her mother’s boss Mr. Lewis spyed her on the bench. He nodded toward her mother, who was now freed from the phone, and she left her cubicle to join them. He stuck out his squat hand and Clem rose to meet it with her own, seeking to hide the impulsive wince from touching another human being and his germs.

“Well, what a pleasure Clem. We haven’t seen you here in ages. Look how tall you’re getting to be.” He beamed a bank manager’s grin at Clem’s mother.

“Would you believe she’s able to wear my clothes now? They grow so fast.”

Clem couldn’t understand why her mother had to indulge this man in the sort of parental banter that rendered her unnecessary.  She was the statue in the lobby. What was the point in responding? They were just going to talk around her.

“Your clothes Delores?” He turned to Clem. “I bet you’re looking for just the occasion to wear those fancy duds. What about the Sophomore Ball?  Charlie still doesn’t have a date, and, you know he’s quite the looker, takes after his old man.” Mr. Lewis gave an overly fake chuckle to acknowledge that he recognized his lame joke.

Clem felt a wave of utter terror. It had been a little over a year since Clem had seen him, but Charlie Lewis did indeed take after his old man, complete with glasses, pot belly, and a premature receding hairline.

“Oh, I think Clementine is going with her new beau," her mother offered.

Okay, now this was just the height of hilarity. Clem had to right the injustice, “I don’t have a beau!”

“I’m not so sure…” her mother was interrupted by an overly enthusiastic Mr. Lewis. 

“Great! You can take Charlie. And, this is just perfect because we also need another chaperone. Delores, I hope you’re free.” Mr. Lewis strategically positioned his ask so that no wasn’t an option.

This day was like an unending nightmare. Clem looked at her mother hard, hoping that somehow mother-daugther telepathy would prevail. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go. Clem’s only hope was that her mother didn’t like attending social functions, didn’t like interacting with the Neighbobs and their progeny. She went from home to work, and little else. Mom! I don’t want to go! Clem continued her silent pleading. The moment hung between them for what seemed like minutes before her mother said, “I wasn’t planning on it, but now that Clem is going. Why not? The kids can come early and we can all help with the set up.”

The governess fell upon her fainting couch, which, in Clem’s case, was the leather bench.

“Great, it’s a plan, then. Wednesday, 6pm. See you there little lady.” He patted Clem on the head and walked over to the tellers.

“Clem! That’s my boss. You didn’t have to slump down like that. It’s disrespectful.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t have to set me up on a date with his supremely subpar offspring just to please him.”

“Tell me the name of that boy you’re seeing.”

Clem still hadn’t come up with a plausible reason for sneaking out of the house in her mother’s party dress and for returning in tears nearly 10 minutes past midnight. The truth remained embarassing. “Mom, for the last time, there isn’t any boy.”

“Fine. Clem. Wednesday at 6pm. And you are going to be the duchess of cool or else thy mother whilst thou much offend.” Some mothers just cursed at their daughters, but her mother used quotes from Hamlet, one of the greatest tragedies of all time, to drive her anger home.

Clem had never played this card with her mother, but she had little choice, this was going too far. “I wanted to see what it was like to wear your clothes, see myself maybe as Dad saw you.” Immediately disabled and somewhat pale, her mother sat on the fainting couch/bench. Clem felt like a heel, but she had to keep going. She didn’t want to go to the Sophomore Ball, and if she at least half-leveled with her mother, maybe she could still get out of it, “I felt enchanted in that dress, with the heels and your lipstick. I had to go out, not to see a boy, but because I wanted to be seen in moon light. It was just whimsy, I swear. Then, I tore the dress on our gate. I knew you would think I was crazy if I told you the truth.”

Her mother was very quiet and still as she said, “I met your father in that dress.”

The words just hung there. This wasn’t the “oh, it’s okay, your father is with the earth” response her mother usually gave. Clem knew that her mother had deeply loved her father, but this was the first time she felt that love. How could she do this to her own mother? To her, Dad wasn’t just a composite of photos. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix the dress. I will.”

Her mother just looked at her.

This time Clem understood the mother-daughter telepathy. “Let’s get some air. It’s stuffy in here. I’ll get your coat.”

As Clem turned around to leave her mother’s cubicle, she saw that, even after almost a full day’s work, the cubicle’s wastepaper can was empty. Ah, discontent.