The distant ticking was the only sound I could hear throughout the house. A grandfather clock no doubt. Penny was standing by the entrance of the dining room with her hands folded in front of her. She kept her eyes to the floor as she smiled away blissfully. I wondered if she had any kids or if she was married perhaps. No ring, no tan line, no jewelry at all. Her hair was making my head hurt.
"Stop staring," my mother whispered to me. I looked away from Penny with a sigh. My eyes roamed elsewhere to not embarrass my mother tonight as she had put it. Focusing on Penny was the only thing to keep me from feeling so little in this room. The dining room, or the west wing as Penny had called it, was bigger than my entire house. I sat at the foot of the table because my mother didn't want to sit next to Gloria. She'd be forced to sit next to me, across from my mother. Or maybe Gloria was a bold woman who would sit beside my mother. The thought was amusing but it made me sad for my mother if Gloria was indeed a bold woman.
"Too many plates. Who needs this many plates...." My mother was staring down the table at all the plates and silverware set out for no one. The table could seat twenty guests. Beautiful orange roses with babies breath sat in a clear vase in the middle of the table. It was a big beautiful bouquet that I wanted to touch and smell. Above the bouquet was a chandelier meant for royalty. It had to be real crystal from the iridescent radiance it possessed. The more I looked around, the more I wondered how one person could live such an elegant wealthy life... and have such a disgusting son who turned out the way he had.
"Ah. I know that look." I jumped in my seat. My eyes shot to where Penny was standing. Beside her was the woman who sat and watched as Marcus had been taken away in handcuffs. Gloria Hoover, a radiant and gorgeous woman who didn't look her age in this house. She had seemed older in the courtroom, weighed down by the fact that she was losing her son. Here, in this fortress, she looked near my mothers' age. Her hair was long and looked healthy. It reached her lower back in thick black waves that shined with even the tiniest of movements she made. Her neck didn't look wrinkled or sagged. Her cheeks didn't appear to swallow. Her hands didn't have age spots and her forehead wasn't filled with worry lines. Gloria Hoover was such a gorgeous woman.
I swallowed hard as she slowly walked towards me, hips swaying a little more than they probably should. Her chest was a little perkier than natural breast should be. As she got closer, I noticed how her earrings pulled her ear lobes down a little lower than how earrings should naturally rest on someone's ears. That was the only sign of age I could see on her. That, and tiny crows feet. The wonders of money...
Gloria had stopped right next to me, smiling slightly. She pulled the chair out next to me and sat down so gracefully. She moved with the lithe of a ballerina almost. "You're judging." I swallowed hard again as she called me out. I looked to my mother who was starring at Gloria with worry. "It's alright," Gloria cooed. As I turned back to Gloria, I felt my heart rate spike as she straightened her knife resting on its place setting. "I'm used to it."
"I didn't mean to... I'm just not used to being somewhere so... um... " I couldn't even find the right words.
"We've never been anywhere so... lovely... as your home. Court Bay Lane isn't something we're used to." My mother had saved me from my idiocy. I sunk in my chair a bit, wanting to be smaller than I felt and forgotten altogether tonight. Gloria observed every movement of mine, smiling softly as if not offended one bit by my actions.
"I grew up on Ridge and Norman. If that helps." Ridge and Norman... Ridge and Norman was the neighborhood right before mine. It was the worst neighborhood to live in. It had the most crime and only people on welfare lived there. It was also a trailer park that was in debt.
"How did you become so... successful?" My mother struggled for words too now. Gloria seemed unwilling to look away from me as she looked to my mother. I wondered if she felt a certain way towards my mother which would be understandable under the circumstances, but something in Gloria's eyes told me otherwise. She smiled so softly and warmly to my mother that it made me sad. How could someone who lost their son to the woman in front of them smile so sweetly like that?
"When I was a little girl, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up."
"Successful?" It had escaped my lips, making me flush. Gloria had laughed to herself as she shook her head.
"I wanted to be just like my father. He worked in a factory, adjusting cookies on an assembly line all day long. I wanted to be around cookies all day long too." Gloria's hands moved as she talked. She waved them around and made gestures to show how her father worked with her hands. My mother sat up straight as she listened to Gloria speak. I could see the slight confusion making faint worry lines on her forehead. "I knew exactly what I wanted to be until I was fourteen years old and learned how to read. See, I never went to school. I never had a backpack, never rode on that big yellow bus, never did any of those things. I lived in an old rusted trailer and collected scraps of metal with my mother to earn a couple of coins for food."
"You were poor." My voice had been so small when I spoke. Gloria nodded with a smile that could pass as a frown. My mother didn't say anything, probably thinking of our struggles in the past like I was. We had been to the point of collecting metal and selling it for pennies and dimes. We'd go an hour out of the way to walk up and down allies, collecting cans and coils from mattresses. We wouldn't dare do it in our neighborhood, afraid of being embarrassed if someone we knew noticed us. We'd been where Gloria had been, we understood all too well.
"I was poor, but I never felt that way. My father and mother loved me so dearly. They would give me the world if they had the power to do so. They did the best they could... and it was enough. It was always enough. I admired them so much for their strength to endure such obstacles that no one should have to face. It was one of the reasons I wanted to be just like my father. Its why I knew exactly what I wanted to be."
"Until you learned to read?" She had said she hadn't learned to read until fourteen. At fourteen I was making book reports on books I hated. Othello, Beowulf, Romeo and Juliet... I hated every single one of those books. But I would choose to hate them than not be able to read until fourteen.
"Exactly. Mrs. Elmer, bless her heart, was my neighbor. She would watch me when my mother finally got a job at the same factory my father worked at. When she realized I couldn't read, she promised that every day she watched me she'd teach me how to read." Gloria took a moment to put her hand to her cheek. I noticed the slight shimmer on her fingertips before moving her hand away. She smiled big as she reminisced about her childhood. "When I could pronounce basic words, she gave me a book to read out loud. It was The Giving Tree." She let out a soft giggle that made me smile. I realized that I had leaned towards her a bit, wanting to hear more of her story.
"I use to read that book to Blair when she was a baby," my mother told her. I looked at my mother to see her smiling at Gloria the way I was smiling. She didn't seem so uncomfortable sitting here anymore as I had been.
"I read it to Marcus too..." The tension grew for only a moment. Gloria's face fell but the smile came back as she held a hand up. "We'll come back to that. This was about me after all." She laughed but it wasn't the same as before. "As I was saying, I knew exactly what I wanted to be until I learned to read. After that, I read books meant for those of my age. I struggled and it took me longer than it probably should have for someone to finish a book. But I read every day and got better with every page I turned. It wasn't until The Diary of A Young Girl, that I realized I wanted to be just like Anne Frank. As morbid as that sounds, I mean it in a respectful sense. I wanted to be a writer. An author. An extraordinary person."
Gloria looked expectant at me and my mother as if waiting for something to click. I looked at my mother confused. She returned that look right back. Gloria wanted to be a writer growing up. Is that what she was now? A writer? Writers weren't successful as far as I knew. Published authors were. Published authors...
"Oh my- You're- Oh my God. Gloria Hoover." I turned to look at my mother's confused face. I was smiling ear to ear with excitement. "Gloria James Hoover. Gloria J? Mom, she wrote the books Jillian's mom wanted you to read. Those romance novels? They made like two movies already and they're making a third right now. Mom, she's famous." I laughed as I spoke, unable to hide how happy I was right now. I was sitting in the home of a famous author. When the gears finally clicked in my mother's head, she sat up straight. She looked to Gloria with her jaw dropped.
"Yes, Gloria James. You don't use your last name on your books. Oh my Gosh. You're Gloria James." Gloria laughed as she nodded happily to my mother. Gloria James Hoover. It was still registering in my head that I was sitting in the home of a famous author. My mother laughed loudly with her hands over her mouth before her smile fell. The atmosphere changed drastically as realization set in again. It hit me hard too. We gave Gloria James Hoover's son twenty-five years. My mother folded her hands as she hid her mouth. She looked across the table to Gloria with despair. Before my mother could speak, Gloria reached across the table with her hand opened. She smiled the way a mother would smile at her child. She gestured for my mother's hand. My mothers' eyes brimmed with tears as she took Gloria's hand. Gloria wrapped both of her hands around my mother's hand and leaned forward.
"I am so deeply sorry... for everything Marcus has put you and your daughter through." Gloria meant every word she said. Two mothers, both devastated for two very different reasons.