No matter how lenient or savvy our parents were, we all got away with things as juveniles that Ma and Pa Ingalls still don't know about. In the interest of full disclosure, especially once we ourselves have also become parents, we often get the itch to crack open a bottle of wine and share laughs with Mom or Dad about our teenage monkeyshines.
I admit I fell from grace many times in high school and college, almost always with comical consequences and none too serious. Granted, the tricks my friends and I pulled rivaled frequent plot devices on "Happy Days": underage beer, fast cars, the opposite sex and our secret post-sundown maneuvers to get them all. I don't know everything my own mother and dad did before they married, but I gather it was similarly colorful.
It's been two decades since I finished college and I've been a mom myself for eight years now, so I assumed the time had come for some straight girl talk with my mom. Truth be told, I looked forward to it and plotted the right time for our chat. I finally decided this past Christmas would provide ample opportunity for a warm and only slightly wicked (I envisioned) retelling and rewriting of our mutual history.
Let me break in here and give a bit more insight about my misadventures. Following my own corruption, I went on to corrupt a few other novices along the way. No names, but know this: no one ever saw the inside of a jail as a result of my devices. There remains the matter of an unsolved 1988 destruction of private property case, but I'll simply repeat what I told the police at the time: "I did not play mailbox baseball that night." The fact that no one asked me who was driving the alleged car was an error on local law enforcement -- and, therefore, not my problem.
I don't think Mom saw my line of conversation coming at her. I waited until we'd both watched enough of the "White Christmas" marathon and wrassled enough pies into and out of her oven. We were both exhausted and retired to her unheated garage for a smoke. Not exactly a warm and fuzzy International Coffee moment in front of the fire, as I'd imagined, but I pushed on undeterred. I wanted it.
I'd worked myself up for this talk the whole four hours it took my little family to drive to my mom's house, during several last-last-minute trips to Wal-mart for forgotten and/or ultimately unnecessary holiday items, and through hours of FOX News that blared from her bedroom at all hours, including through the night until her TV sleep timer snicked into merciful silence at the refreshing hour of 3 a.m. I needed a warm, enlightening, funny talk that was meant just for the two of us, to shed light on the girls we'd been and the women we've become. Don't start humming "The Way We Were" just yet, though.
My in came soon. Between Pall Mall puffs, she was telling me how one of my uncles recently told her he drank moonshine (granted, we're Kentuckians, but it was still news for our family.) I laughed with her and began. "That reminds me of a funny story. Remember Stan Starling, who was in marching band with me? Remember how I would take him home from practice? He never had any gas money, so he paid me with a quart jar of moonshine once." I laughed as I told her.
Now, if this had been a "Happy Days" Christmas reunion special, Mr. Cunningham would have turned to Richie and a) admitted he'd always known about it; b) clapped him on the back and told him a similarly funny/inappropriate story about his Army days; or, c) put his arm around Richie, smiled at him, then wished him a Merry Christmas. Life doesn't always imitate art. And yes, I consider "Happy Days" art.
It took a few moments for me to recognize the next sound. It was her silence. I looked up to meet her eyes, then I saw and heard two phenomena I hadn't experienced in at least a decade. She said my name, but my whole premarriage triple name "Julie ... Carol ... BALL!" And the look she gave me resembled the one I got when she caught me frying a grilled cheese with the plastic Kraft singles wrappers still on at age 7.
I realized too late I would never be old enough for what I imagined would be a warm exchange of little white lies. Some mamas never want their babies to lie to them, never not never ever, and they do not appreciate the news that they've been laboring under a huge web of deception, which spread further and further as the story came out.
What followed this tidbit was a strict line of questioning, which she controlled ("What did you do with it?" "We drank it" "Where?" "In my bedroom" "When?" "At the slumber party" "Who was there?" Names omitted to protect the innocent. "Where was I?" "Asleep" "Julie ... Carol ... BALL!")
She pumped me for further information, further unknown incidents. I opened my mouth and out spilled a garbled, graceless wad of repressed truths with no comedic context to soften the blow. I realized what I knew as a teenager. As long as I continued to maintain eye contact with her, I was sunk. I jumped out of my chair and pretended to adjust her trash can liners. Then, she began lobbing guilt grenades at my head, "where had she gone wrong," "parents can't be everywhere you know," "I just did the best I could," etc.
I turned around to her, threw out my hands, and admitted I was sorry for keeping all this from her (which I most certainly was NOT) and that I had imagined our little talk going differently. I had hoped we'd just talk as women, as friends, about mistakes we made as kids and how we got through them without our parents' knowledge. She didn't say anything at first, then she snuffed out her cigarette and stood up. I waited for her to say something fit for a holiday special. She did not disappoint: "Some things are better left unsaid." How true.
"Now, come in here and help me with this damn ham," she added. At this last, I danced to life. I was transported back to when I was a kid and her vengeance was swift, but never long lived, and I felt all warm and fuzzy. Does that make sense? Not unless you know my family, and luckily, I do.
So instead of a Cafe Vienna moment, us girls shared Folgers and cigarettes. It was a more comforting moment, after all -- that and the knowledge that she still cared enough about me to get mad and use once more all three names with which I entered her world.
Happy days -- at least one -- indeed.
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