Like a lot of middle-aged women in the 70s, particularly in her circle, my mom embraced the feminist movement by getting a divorce. That my dad was ripe divorce material is indisputable, but that my mom and her three closest friends all got divorces in unison is equally indisputable.
Pilates and yoga might be great for you, but they're still fads.
While I was happy that my parents' unholy death march of a marriage was behind us all, I was unprepared for what came next. Mom wanted a replacement man, and she wanted one right now. She was a boy-crazy teenager—anxious, prone to bawling, unwilling to leave lunging range from the phone. I was too young to recognize that, of course, but I sure knew needy when I saw it.
The pattern began immediately. First up: Wayne, a local cop and a member of our church. Mom fixated on him, inviting him to dinner and touching his arm while laughing just-a-little-too-loudly at his jokes. Who was this fawning, obsequious woman? Why was she suddenly being a model parent when Wayne was over? She was a stranger to me, an actress, and I was her prop. My real mom made an appearance when she had the clerk of courts dig up Wayne's divorce records, which she then shared the highlights of with me. "Can you even believe what this bitch said he did? Poor Wayne. Poor, poor Wayne." She bought his house, which we lived in for Mom's remaining years. After the sale of the house, Wayne disappeared. If you ever wonder how a single mother handles rejection, wonder no more: her kid is her therapist. I reassured her that she was a good person, that she was attractive, that she wasn't going to die alone. I didn't remotely believe any of these things, of course, but lying extricated me from the crying jags and cost me nothing but my soul.
What followed next was a parade of losers the likes of which even my older sisters never mustered. Dick stands out. Dick was a spectacular midlife crisis suspended forever in mid-explosion. If you know "Disco Stu" on the Simpsons, you know Dick. I was "the man." Mom was "hot mama." They danced The Bump and roller-discoed and got afros. They weighted themselves down with ballast of gigantic, horrifyingly ugly turquoise jewelry. I, myself, had a cowboy hat with a giant silver and turquoise belt buckle on it. And a matching actual belt buckle. Dick disappeared for younger pastures, and although I wasn't sad in the least to see my mother stop defiling herself, there were times I preferred my ugly cowboy hat to my therapist's hat.
Those were mere warmups for the main attraction: Mom took a shine to Catholic priests. Loved them. Loved them. She'd always been a fan, but loneliness turned her into a sex-mad groupie. The first was Colby, who I scarcely remember, save that he used my mom and broke her heart. That, and that I was compelled to be an altar boy in his church. Shudder. Next up was Jim, a gem who actually left the priesthood for my mother; who nailed her quite audibly (parents: if you're going to lock the kid out of the house in order to get some, kindly don't lock just the screen door); who complimented her on her "nice tits" in front of me—in Spanish, so I guess it didn't count; who she couldn't wait to show off to my newly remarried father; with whom she made plans to marry, pull me out of school, sell the house, and move to an an RV in Arizona. In short order, I began perusing recruiting literature from circuses.
Jim clearly had to go. One day when I was accidentally rummaging through his bureau drawers for something, anything that would keep me from living in an RV in Arizona, I came across ballet tickets. Pure gold. He was not, as it turned out, taking my mother. That a man who was already so morally compromised would undertake cheating made sense enough to me, but for some reason it ambushed my mother. She was devastated. She hated him, and she hated me for exposing him. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me: I didn't much care. Evil was smacked down, and order was restored to my universe. Two of my favorite things. But Mom, oddly, seemed to blame me for ruining her one chance at true happiness. A simple "thank you" would have sufficed.