Mom Overboard by Valerie Frankel

Author:Valerie Frankel [Frankel, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Rachel

Rachel watched the glassblowing demonstration with a small group of tourists. The glassware factory, nestled against a rum cake factory, was pretty much all Hamilton had to offer tourists, along with a 200-year-old fort and a minimall of bodegas selling T-shirts, jewelry, and shell-covered stash boxes.

The glassblower wore heavy mittens that went up to his elbows. He removed a long hollow iron tube from a shimmering furnace. A smoldering glob on the end of the tube glowed red. With a combination of spinning and blowing, the glob took the form of a tulip-shaped vase.

Impressive, dangerous work. Rachel could be proud to spend her life learning a trade and creating nice things that contributed to the happiness of others. One of her friends was content to ride her bike around Bushwick, wearing a bandana Aunt Jemima style and selling homemade sandwiches out of a basket. Another earned a living reselling “found objects d’art”—nonperishable trash she cleaned up and bedazzled with plastic gems and a glue gun—at the Brooklyn Flea Market. Rachel could devote her life to maintaining the Hamilton waterfront’s flowers and cobblestone. Preserving natural beauty was a noble purpose. She added it to her list that already included feeding the poor, healing the sick, and controlling the climate.

When the demonstration was over, she bought a glass starfish, a birthday gift to herself. It was cute and useless. Like me, she thought. She made a few laps through the mall bodegas to kill time before she boarded a catamaran called the Gray Pearl for a snorkel tour. Around noon, Rachel went back to the dock, found the Pearl, and got on the line to board. The ocean temperature would be around 75 degrees—cold. About 20 hearty swimmers and fish lovers had signed up.

“Oh, crap,” she said when she spotted Dorothy heading toward the Gray Pearl with a ticket in her hand. Ashanti must have gotten Dorothy a ticket, too, assuming mother and daughter intended to share an adventure. Rachel ducked behind the tall man in front of her and watched Dorothy scan the crowd. Her mother wore a red and purple floral silk kimono and a huge floppy hat. People stopped to look at her. She was striking. No denying that.

Rachel had inherited Dorothy’s height, ectomorphic body type and catlike cheekbones. Dorothy accused Rachel of downplaying her looks out of fear. But Rachel wasn’t afraid of fashion. She just didn’t see the point. She was comfortable in her thrift store flannel, old black bikini, a T-shirt her friend had made, cutoff shorts, and flip-flops.

As Rachel watched, Dorothy located the Gray Pearl and went directly to the front of the line to board. With boisterous charm, she showed her ticket to the beach bum guy admitting people. He pointed to the back of the line. Rachel couldn’t hear what she said to him, but the beach bum laughed and waved her onboard.

Her mom cut the line. She was a freaking cutter. And no one complained. This was how Dorothy operated. She used a combination of charisma and shamelessness to get what she wanted.

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