The Cookie

You know that point during long-distance traveling when you are so bone-tired and weary, you could easily imagine barging into the nearest hotel and just flopping down on one of their sofas in the lobby “just to rest your eyes”?

That’s the point Mom and I had reached.  The flight had been nearly ten hours.  Mom’s seatmate to her right, Marla, had been extremely friendly, evoking a wide ray of emotions from us both.

My mother made a simple inquiry about the mask the lady next to her was wearing, and before you knew it, she and Marla were becoming fast friends.  I read and sketched, as I wasn’t feeling particularly social, but I was curious when I heard Marla mention schizophrenia.  It turned out Marla’s sister has schizophrenia, and is unable to live independently.  As she described her sister’s routine at the facility and her twice-monthly visits,  I sat imagining first how horrible for Marla’s sister and her family, and then on the heels of that, what if this had been Cory’s life?   I turned my head and silently bawled.

It was sort of like when you go to a wedding, and whether married, separated, divorced, or remarried, you remember your own wedding day(s).  It was especially like attending a funeral of someone you don’t know very well, and find yourself transferring the heartfelt emotion of all those loved ones and friends weeping around you to a still living loved one of your own.  Is this what it will feel like at Mom’s funeral?  At Dad’s? 

What if Cory had gotten worse?  Is that why she was taken?  Had there been something even more horrible lying in wait in her future?

Feeling distraught, I grabbed my I-phone and earbuds and shut out Mom and Marla’s continued conversation.  In two seconds, those voices were gone.  If only my girl could’ve done the same.

I fell asleep to my plane mix, and woke up to mom nudging me.  She had her ever faithful steno notebook open to her trip budget page (what every financial wizard in the know takes on holiday), and was running figures with Marla.  To my dismay, mom was revealing openly what type and amount of cash we were traveling with, with cards we had, and what our plans were for carrying cash and credit cards throughout our stay.  As I napped, they had made plans for us to all go to the airport ATM together when we got to Rome.

Internally, I cringed.  How do you say to your mother, “Mom, I know she seems nice but she could be a total criminal, and rob us blind as she looks over our shoulder at the ATM when we land” when the seemingly nice, helpful fellow passenger is less than a foot away?  I tried to whisper in Mom’s ear, but she couldn’t hear me, and naturally I couldn’t repeat myself.

As I tried to figure out why Mom was planning her trip expenditures with Marla, when she wasn’t even our traveling companion, a new thought struck me….perhaps they’d hatched yet another plan while I was asleep...a plan to meet up and travel together… the three of us.

Dear God.

Here, I must break in to say, Marla, if you are reading, you seemed like a lovely person.  It wasn’t you; it was me.  I was not in any emotional state to be traveling with anyone, if you really got down to it, so please don’t take offense that I didn’t want to go ahead and make it a group event.

Also, I do not necessarily think you a criminal, I was merely being cautious.  In my defense, anxiety is prevalent in my family, although where mom’s was as she did her financial planning and monetary reveal with you, the world may never know.

Mom and Marla, those devil may care world travelers added and divided various modes of transportation from the airport to our hotels, determined to find the cheapest route.   Math makes me nervous, and in the past few months, math about money makes me break out in hives.  It was at this point of the flight, with Marla repeatedly explaining to Mom the exchange rate of  American dollars to euros, that I eyed my shoulders, which had become covered with  swollen patches of red dots.  My right side began itching uncontrollably, and I stopped scratching it only long enough to dig my anxiety meds out of my carry on. 

These pills, no bigger than the moon of my fingernail are not very powerful.  I had been taking them since the accident when I had to do public speaking or be around a lot of people.  In the last week or so, as the anniversary date of Cory’s death loomed, I had openly snubbed them and stolen my husband’s Valium, instead. 

So there, on the plane, I took my four tiny nerve pills like an old lady, and laid back to not worry  about bills, debt, the purchase of Cory’s monument, and how I really couldn’t afford to be taking this trip in the first place.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  Yeah, sure.

Sure enough, when Mom and I got off the plane, Marla was right with us.  When Mom’s suitcase did not appear on the luggage carousel, Marla waited patiently with us.  Or I should say, when Mom didn’t at first recognize her suitcase when it came around on the luggage carousel?  Mom’s suitcase was one of the first ones out of the chute, but turned over on its back, looked slightly different than what she remembered.  When the plane officials came over to take down her information, she described her bag to them in detail.  The chignoned woman in the collared shirt and blazer promised to do her best, and strode efficiently away in her sensible black pumps.  Two minutes later, she was motioning us over…Mom’s suitcase had been found!  We were jubilant!

Yep, there it was, all right… right there on the carousel, taking perhaps its 75^th trip of the morning. 

 It rolled dutifully our way, every bit as tired and disgusted as we were.  If it could’ve spoken, it would’ve said, “Really?  Really, lady?  I’d know you anywhere.”

Mom and I looked at each other, and instead of laughing, just sighed with relief.  It is a sad situation when you may be, in fact, too tired to laugh.

 Marla, in tow, we then visited the ATM.  I prepared myself to run after her, and tackle her to the ground if she tried any funny business, but Marla demurely used her card, and then just stood there waiting for us, patient as Job.   It seemed perhaps I had been wrong, and she was not a con artist.  Marla, again, I apologize.

Mom and Marla worked out all the particulars of sharing cab fare, as I got to know our cabbie better in my mind, in a variety of soothing positions.  Before getting out at her hotel, Marla pressed a paper with her contact information into my hand, and suggested we all get together for some wine before the week was over.  I shoved it in my bag, and wished her well.

Finally, we made it to the Plaza Hotel, only to discover check in wasn’t for another three hours.  I paid the bellboy to take our bags off our hands, and we practically crawled our way into the sumptuous salon area that was teeming with velvet couches, ornate gold statues, and gilded mirrors. 

“Mom, I don’t know if I can move.  Can we just sit here for a while?”  I pleaded- me, the nearing forty year old, pleading for the seventy-five year old to let us rest.  Life can be funny sometimes.

“Yes, yes.  We sure can.”  she said, sinking down into an embroidered armchair.

I looked around, taking in my surroundings, and scanning the area for caffeine.  As a waiter wandered through, I asked him if there was a café in the hotel.

“Latte?  Cappuccino?”  he queried.

I nodded eagerly, too exhausted to come up with “yes” in Italian.

“You sit.  We bring.  Prego.”  He murmured, and bowed in the direction of my beloved couch.

“Mom, do you want any?” I asked, pausing the waiter in mid-step.

“No, honey, I’ve got my water.”  She answered, pulling it out of her purse.

Moments later, Mom and I watched, enthralled as the waiter, with a cloth napkin over his forearm, as if serving a fine bottle of Bordeaux, approached our little traveler’s respite nook.  He balanced a giant silver tray on one hand, and began laying out smaller silver trays before us, like a well-practiced magician.  First, sweeteners: three kinds, then a napkin holder and napkins, folded just so, my saucer and doll-sized cappuccino cup, and finally an even smaller saucer with a tiny baked good positioned exactly in the middle.  It was like having a tea party with Cory and her American Girl dolls.  She would have loved it.

The whole thing was so orchestrated, so graceful, it felt like a fluid dance, and completely unnerved me, causing me to forget the poor man’s tip.  As he tactfully backed away, pockets empty, I surveyed the bounty before me, and clapped my hands together like a small girl.

After all these years of taking care of everyone, someone was finally taking care of me.

 I felt like a princess.

"Mom, I feel like a princess."  I said.  My mother smiled dutifully, likely wondering what the world had come to, hearing such a ridiculous statement from her thirty nine year old daughter.

(Never mind that I was paying for this treatment, which I remembered before I’d finished my cappuccino.  Mom and I took turns guessing what the bill might be.)

Mom looked from the doll-sized coffee cup to the tiny saucer, and then to what could only be a quarter sized cookie.  She adjusted her glasses, and looked again.

I waited for her to say something in complaint…the hotel was stingy, the prices were outrageous, Italy was a total rip off, but instead, she grinned a tiny grin…about the size of that cookie, and eyes twinkling, said this,

“Well, honey, try not to eat it all in one bite.”

Our eyes met, and the years between us fairly melted away.  It could have been Cory and I sitting in that salon, howling and snorting in laughter at the diminutive cookie that somehow struck us as deliciously funny.  It was the sort of thing that slumber parties as a girl are made off…equal parts sleep deprivation and chance observations.

Always one to keep the joke rolling, no matter how lame, I asked her,

“Mom, where are my manners?  Would you like a bite?”

This only made her fall back against her chair, helplessly lost in another gale of laughter.  For the next hour we spent gathering the strength to go find lunch, we giggled every few minutes as our eyes happened upon the tiny saucer, and the now empty saucer.

Yes, looking back I think all our laughter in Italy started with that cookie.

It was one of those nearly imperceptible moments, where you stop being just family, and start being friends.