The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [56]
Kyle is ready to go. We’re headed to Piccadilly to meet up with some deejay we met at a party in Wimbledon two nights ago. The previous sentence sounds way more glamorous than it is.
Write me a letter, why don’t you? Paper is more old- fashioned and warped, even when sent FedEx.
My email address is blackchandelier@gmail.com in case you’re feeling modern and lazy. I check the address daily.
Bye, Roger.
Ta!
B.
DeeDee
Roger,
I came to Staples but it was your day off. They wouldn’t give me your home address, your phone’s unlisted, and you have no Google existence. Are you a Unabomber or something?
Bethany left with that wretch, Kyle. She told me she was going to England the morning before the afternoon flight, and I botched it and screamed all the things you’re not supposed to scream, which gave her the moral high ground and allowed her to slip into dignified silence mode—which inflamed me more. When numbnuts came to pick her up, I threw the Braun coffeemaker at him from the balcony. But what—I was supposed to let her run away and do something stupid, and say nothing? What sort of mother would I be if I did that?
What the hell is she going to do in England? England? Who goes to England? High school choirs, soccer hooligans, tea salesmen and pansies. She said she’s going to Europe for half a year and she’s going to get a job there because her father’s mother was born in Brussels—some sort of European visa boondoggle. Yeah, right. They’re going to smoke pot, meet losers, sit on trains and eat junk food. That’s all young people do there, along with fucking around. I did the Europe thing once, except I had no illusions about what it was about. Sex and drugs. Period.
Oh God, I’m jealous. And I’m utterly sick with worry, though I think Bethany could hold her own in the gutters of Hanoi if she had to. I’m so lonely I can barely think. I got a terse little mini-email from her today, and it was way worse than hate mail. “Mom. I’m fine. Relax.”
She’s there with somebody else, and even if that somebody is that scheming prick, at least she has somebody.
Has she written you? Is she writing you? I hope she is. I think it’s good she has one adult in her life she can talk to. I want you to grill all those twerps there at Staples and find out what you can about Kyle. Does Bethany email them? Did she get a job? Does she hate every minute of it and plan on coming home soon?
Sorry, I didn’t ask you if you were fine. Bethany said you didn’t have the flu, but that you were depressed about something, and she didn’t know what, but now you’re back at work. How is your novel coming? How can you concentrate on something that takes so long to do?
I’m off to a doctor’s appointment.
I appreciate whatever help you can give me.
Bye.
DD
Roger
DeeDee,
I’m not going to act as a go-between between a mother and her daughter. Let Bethany enjoy Europe. She’s hasn’t written me, but she also isn’t the type to do freaky, crazy shit like we might have done in the seventies. Yes, she wears vampire makeup, but it’s only makeup—it’s make-believe— it’s something to tide her over until something more real comes along. As for Kyle? He’s a blank. A generic good- looking kid with zero ambition and grades that stink—why else would he be working at Staples at, what, twenty-four? Kyles like him will be selling cellphone packages at twenty- five, and by thirty they’ll have their shit together enough to get a pickup and start a half-assed gardening service, and by forty they’ll be in coke or meth rehab, but by then our Kyle will be almost two decades out of Bethany’s picture. Whatever is between them, it’s not going to last. You know it. I know it. So relax.
Today has been strange for me. To be honest, I miss my mother, which is something I never experienced when she was alive. Missing that mean spirited, sour judgmental old battle-axe is the last thing I would have expected, but today I was in an ATM lineup at the bank, and there was this woman