It was a slow walk back to Bette’s. Yeah, like it was my fault.

Okay, it was my fault.

I was feeling kind of like, I don’t know, annoyed with the world. Whatever was happening, it still seemed to be ignoring any plans I had made. That just didn’t seem right.

So we started off with mom and Bette leading, and me behind them. And I was following them, really I was. But I guess I was kind of lagging, too.

Neither one wants to let me out of their sight. As if I’d do something stupid. I’ve learned where my friends are in this town – they’re back at the hotel. Actually, right about now, they’re probably off on a tour. Still, they’re certainly not in this part of town.

So, they ended up behind me. I still set the pace, though. They can’t fix me; especially since I’m not the one that’s broken.

But maybe I am, in a way.

I mean, what if I had two mothers. I dunno.

It’s not like I’d ever felt in the past like there was something missing. Kind of like when you get a great CD or something. Before you owned the CD your life was complete, right?

But then afterwards, there’s maybe that one special song or whatever, and you kind of feel like that explains things for you in a way that maybe things should have been explained all along. Maybe there was a voice that you were supposed to be using, or something, and you just never knew you had it.

In a way, that’s how I view Bette. It’s not that I had a bad life before I met her. And I’ve only known her for about twelve hours, so honestly, the jury’s still a little out. Initially, she was totally cool, but she so quickly fell into the mom-realm back in her office, telling me how I screwed up and stuff.

Yeah, maybe I did ***** up a little, but does someone really need to tell me that?

But there’s some weird potential with Bette. Like somehow, she might be that song that was missing, but I never knew until I stumbled upon all this stuff.

And I can’t quite figure out mom and Bette, though. There’s nothing there, officially. Far more than nothing, though. It’s kind of like when something becomes so negative that it’s like a positive, well, that’s kind of how I think mom sees Bette.

Bette, on the other hand, I don’t know. Sometimes she’s definitely large and in charge, but other times, she just defers to what mom wants. I still say she knows how to play mom. But when you really look at the two of them, they so know how to play each other.

Like now, there’s no reason, really, for them to be walking side-by-side, but they are. They just fall into that kind of stuff naturally.

I’ve seen how they look at each other. Especially Bette, and especially when mom’s not looking at her. Maybe that’s because mom’s mostly been on a tear since she’s been here, who knows.

But, like I told her already, I know mom wouldn’t be so angry if there wasn’t something there. Why fight so hard against someone you don’t have any sort of feelings for? And isn’t being mad a feeling? She’s certainly got that right now.

Honestly, I think that’s a big part of why some of that mad’s going towards me. Like, ok, she’s mad about me taking off. I understand that. And she might even have a right to be mad that I took a walk today, even if I still think everyone’s overreacting, but that’s a different matter entirely.

But I know I don’t get mad and stay mad at people I don’t know. Get mad, yeah, I guess there’s some of that. But stay mad? No way.

Mom, meanwhile, is so on edge.

And it’s not just lack of sleep. I’ve seen how she does on little or no sleep. She tends to run herself into the ground when working on big events, like all the fundraising she does for the Center. That, on top of the part-time job with the studio, some weeks it’s like she’s working two full-time jobs.

And she gets very stressed. She gets very short. Crabby, even. She gets full-on crabby, sometimes. She does not get mad.

Nope.

And there’s something else that’s starting to make a little more sense to me.

Over the years, especially as I’ve gotten older, I’ve heard, or overheard, some of mom’s excuses for not dating women, or for not pursuing a relationship. You know, too tall, too short, too young, too old, too whatever in abundance or in too minimal amounts of something. But when it all came down to it, I think that the big problem was that all of them were lacking Bette-ness.

Sure, mom has had a few relationships. There’s been a couple women who’ve drifted in for a time, and then moved on.

But nothing like the instant love, short-term romance, and quick breakup I’ve seen in so many of mom’s friends. Mom was more like the date until you find a reason to dump type.

Not like I want to share mom with just anyone, but in Bette’s case, it’s different. Although she’s a stranger to me, she’s certainly not a stranger to my life. And she’s not a stranger to mom. Maybe she’s just been misplaced for a while, and was waiting to be found or something.

And while I haven’t had a chance to do extensive questioning on said Ms. Porter, it did seem like she lived alone. She’s not wearing any ring. And I wouldn’t be surprised if her track record isn’t all that different than mom’s.

Wow. It makes me kind of wonder if the universe is into playing major jokes. Like, what if there was only one person for everyone, but you couldn’t stand that person?

I guess if so, it’d kind of look like the pair walking behind me, giving me dirty looks from time to time as I slow down just a little bit more.

It’s hard to do, really, walk so slowly and not make it totally obvious since my legs are kind of long. But I worked at it, and I totally got the rhythm down.

Unfortunately, there’s only so much stalling one can do on a short walk. Believe me, I think I set a record.

So, here we are, back at Bette’s loft. The loft with the plenty of guest space, I would add out loud if I wanted anyone to listen to me at this point, which I don’t.

Now I’m not just thinking for myself, mind you. But wouldn’t it be cool to be bi-costal while still in high school?

And not like those kids who are doing the forced two weeks with the distant parent after the divorce. This could be, I don’t know, mom and me coming out to visit Bette. A whole post-nuclear and post-meltdown family, right? In a way, it’d be an anti-divorce. How many kids get one of those?

I wonder if Bette’s ever seen mom’s place in California. I can’t remember living anywhere else, so maybe they even lived there together.

It’s a nice house, kind of an open feeling to it all. Lots of wood. There’s a pool in back which is way sweet. I don’t think I realized when I was growing up that not everyone had a pool in their back yard.

The area’s got that whole ***** vibe, but so does my family so we fit. I think Bette would like it, too.

As we enter the loft I just take a seat on the couch back in the conversation pit. If they want me to do something, they’ll tell me.

I watch, kind of without pretending to watch, you know, as the two nothing-to-each-others walk shoulder to shoulder, barely a paper-width between them, and head for the kitchen.

Yeah. I do that with the people I hate, too.

But I figure they want time to talk. I could hope they’d find a lot to talk about, given they haven’t seemed to talk much in the last fifteen years or so. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that they’ll mainly be talking about me.

I do like talking about myself; I’ve freely admitted that. I’m not so excited when other people talk about me. When they do, things don’t always go my way.

Not that I’m having such a great track record on “my way” right now, but you know what I mean.

So I sit there, looking at some of the artwork that I can see. And I remember how fun it was to go through this stuff with Bette, and how fun she was until her newfound sense of adulthood kicked in. But it’s really not so bad.

Mom and Bette are talking in low voices to each other. I’ve given up trying to listen in. I’m not sure anything I’ve learned has really helped. Plus, at this point, I don’t think I really want to hear what they might be saying about me.

I’m sure they’re talking about me, though. What else would they have to talk about?

Sometimes I need to remind myself of stuff, like the uniqueness of the art around me and all that. These are happy thoughts, and I think I might need one or two extra happy thoughts in the near future. Especially since I think that it won’t be too long before I’ll have to deal with whatever those two are plotting – and who knows what that might be.

Not that I think they’d be completely unfair or anything like that. If anything, mom’s generally been totally fair with me. Doesn’t mean I don’t hear about when I do wrong, although there are times, like the last couple days, when we disagree on the degree of wrong.

In any case, I was sure I’d find out soon enough what’s up with them, whether I want to or not.

I was right about that when I heard those immortal words, “Jess, lunch.”

It was Bette Porter calling me over, like it was completely normal or something. While it probably shouldn’t have, I gotta say that this gave me a glimmer of hope.

What if, during the time they were fixing lunch, they totally reconciled and we were all going back to California? How cool would that be? And it’d all be because of me. That’d make being grounded until I’m thirty so totally worth it.

Then again, if I was grounded until I was thirty, wouldn’t they want to kick me out of the house from time to time?

Not that I want to spend a lot of time contemplating on this aspect of my mom’s life, but even I could see that mom and Bette must have been one hot couple.

“Jess, now.” This time it was mom calling. I try not to blush. Not that she’d know what I’d been thinking about, but I really don’t want to be explaining why it took me so long to come to the table or why I was blushing.

When I got to the table, I could definitely see mom’s touches. For one thing, there were vegetables present. I’d guess they came from a can since Bette’s refrigerator was looking pretty empty of things that were intentionally green.

I didn’t spend much time glancing in it, but my guess was, neither did she. Like, the sandwich and bread and stuff was totally cool; those seemed like the high-turnover items. There was other stuff in there that was more questionable in terms of origin and duration.

Fortunately, we had sandwiches to go with the veggies. Given my observations, that made me happy.

Then, I don’t know why, but I got struck with this really odd thought. This meal was like me in a way, a combination of the two of them. And it just made me laugh.

Maybe I need sleep.

They both sort of looked at me, as if they were wondering why I was laughing. Well, it was better than blushing, but no easier to explain.

So, rather than trying to explain it, I just kept giggling. I don’t know, I couldn’t stop. Sure, I had to deal with the eye rolls from mom, and the inquisitive glance of Bette, but that didn’t really matter.

We all served ourselves in relative silence, except for me. They were waiting for me to stop, I think, before they said anything. Easier said than done, though, since while I sat there, I noticed how the two of them had, unintentionally or not, arranged their chairs so that they were sitting closer to each other than the chairs had been set originally.

Plus, each one was leaning in the direction of the other. The effect was a sort of united front, with both of them staring at me. But the side-effect was the fact that they were really, really close to each other. Another one of those unintentionally things you do with someone you hate, I guess. You know, keep edging into their personal space.

Finally, I think I’d pushed mom to the edge. “Are you done?” She looked so sincere, doing that mom thing.

I clamped my lips shut and tried to make myself stop laughing. I nodded yes, rather than trying to talk. Why risk things, right?

But then Bette gave me this look where her face was just total confusion, and she kept looking between me and mom. And, I don’t know, but it was funny.

I burst out laughing again, unable to hold it in. This time I was joined by Bette Porter. Not with the full-out laughing that I was doing, but with at least a few chuckles or something. Something more low-key, more adult, in a way.

I’ve been told before that I have infectious laughter. Well, trust me, mom is immune.

There I was, laughing. There was Bette, tossing in a giggle now and again.

And then the most amazing thing happened. Mom had her whole mom-face on, the kind that screams disapproval without saying a word. I thought she was going to go off on me about all of this, as if I could have stopped if I wanted to.

But then, Bette Porter reaches out a hand and nudges mom. And the two look at each other. And, somehow, mom’s mom-face melted away. And mom actually joined us, giggling in her own way.

And just for a moment, it was, I don’t know exactly. It was a feeling that was comfortable. This sounds weird, since I just met Bette Porter. But in a way, I felt like she was that song that I never knew I’d needed.

This was a feeling of home.

The three of us were there, seated around the table, and all of us had finally relaxed a little or something. And it was nice.

Nice, for approximately three nanoseconds. Then mom moved to speak.

And I got all nervous again. But this is what I wanted, right?

“Jess, I know you have questions.”

Ok, so far, not so bad.

“And Bette and I are going to do our best to answer them.”

This got an agreeing nod from Bette Porter.

“Within limits,” mom quickly added.

This last comment got another nod from Bette, who then tacked on, “so, what do you want to know?”

(tbc)