I'm back home ... but...

I'm back home, but not all is well, despite the smile I have while riding my scooter. I'm not even sure how long I'll call the Plumb mansion 'home.'

There are work matters -- the third relic is still in some pyramid in Egypt, I have yet to find the writings of Qin Shan Hu, and Satis has been on my brain ever since before I left China. I'm not sure if it's a case of her needing me -- or me needing her. I suspect it's a little of both. Especially now, now that relations with my own mother have gone from bad to worse.

You know it's pretty bad when your dad is trying to play mediator between you and your mom. That was the case the morning I returned home.

As Bassy might have told you, my book was published while I was gone. I knew exactly what I was saying, and I wrote exactly what I wanted to say. If you've read this blog enough, you know that I don't mince words, that I say exactly what I mean. Sometimes my bluntness gets me into trouble.

I wanted to have a decent conversation with my mother. Really, I did. And the whole thing started out innocuously enough, with me and dad and Bassy at the breakfast table.
"Say, Vanna," dad asked, half-jokingly, "did you bring enough fortune cookies for the rest of us?" I promised him I had but I'd have to get them out of my bag and hope they weren't crushed.

Bassy, of course, was bragging to me that he'd gotten his first kiss before I did. I wouldn't even look up at him. I was like, okay, Bas, you got me there. The social stuff comes so easy for him. Even when he was little he had tons of friends and was always at someone's house. I, by contrast, was never exactly the most social person, and that kind of thing was always a challenge for me, even when I was little. I'd never had a play date at someone's house and none of the other kids shared my interests.

Anyway, mom came in after the rest of us had eaten breakfast...and she was not happy. Truthfully, when is she happy? The only time I'd seen her semi-in a good mood was right after she and dad got married in France.

"Could you tell me the meaning of this book?" she asked me, holding up an advance copy of my book. She decided to read, aloud, at the table, a passage from chapter 2.

"Saffron Riana Palmer, where the hell have you been?" Saundra Burroughs
stood at the entrance door to their custom-built mansion in the Simmywood Hills,
as, in anguish and disgust, she watched her daughter once again get out of the
back door of a police car.
Saundra had been quite the beauty in her day; indeed, in her bedroom she had posters of herself in her former glory. When her career stalled, she devoted herself full-bore to raising Saffron, who she called an ‘accidental tourist.‘ She watched younger actresses get the choice roles she once had. Now middle-aged and harried, she once again presided over the inevitable lecture of a wayward child.

"Could you tell me, Savannah, what was that production?"

"Mom, it's a story, really. It's fiction. It's not real."

"It surely sounded real to me, Savannah. Saffron Palmer? Saundra Burroughs? A kid breaking curfew and her mom lecturing her? Sounds a lot like you're talking about yourself to me."

"They tell you in writing class that you're supposed to write what you know. Well, I'm writing about what I know."

"You have been out of control since the day you were born, Savannah. I didn't have these problems with my other two daughters."

"If you took time to be a mother, maybe I wouldn't be 'out of control.'"

"Savannah!"

"Well, it's the truth, isn't it? You always told us to tell the truth. Well, now I'm telling it."

"And Savannah, what's this about a mummy? Did you actually encounter one?"

"So what if I did? Is it any of your business?"

Mom had figured out that my story wasn't entirely fiction. But I didn't answer her. Nor did I reply to her next query.

"You know, Savannah, in my day girls were supposed to be seen and not heard. The most dangerous thing we ever did was walk around in stiletto heels. Here you are, gallivanting about the world, taking up residence in dusty tombs and dodging fire, electricity, and mummies. And you're -- happy -- about this?"

"I'm happier than I've ever been in my entire life. I love my job and cannot imagine myself doing anything else."

"Start with your walk, Savannah. My gosh, you don't walk, you tramp about with your fists clenched, great heaving strides. You're supposed to glide about, like a lady."

"Yeah, well, mom, you know, it's kinda late to try to tell me what to do now."

"You know, I wish you were more like Sebastian, really. He has a ton of friends, does well in school, and wouldn't even think of doing the things you do."

"You know, mom, if you wish I were more like Bassy, then how come when he had a problem, he ran to me? You know why that is? Because you were never fucking there!"

"How can I be there when you put a brick wall around your father and never allowed me to get close? It's just the two of you most of the time -- on an island all by yourselves. No one else is even allowed entry."
"Maybe if you would stop being such a hard-ass --"

"Savannah Rachel Plumb, you have the nerve to accuse someone of being a hard-ass? That's the pot calling the kettle black, really. You walk around here thinking you're so tough. That Cheesman boy came looking for you the other day and he was crying when he was talking about you. You hurt him, big time. You are the most self-centered, disobedient, willful girl I've ever seen in my life."

"Oh, so now you join the party, trying to control MY life!"

"Savannah, if you're not careful, you're gonna end up alone -- like your Aunt Margaret."

I was incensed. "How dare you bring her into this conversation only to insult her! If I ended up like Aunt Margaret, then I've lived a very happy life."