I Didn't Have To Go Downstairs

I could tell in her scream that she was excited. In fact, the scream was so loud and so enthusiastic that I stopped looking for the shirt I wanted to wear in the endless sea of clothes on my bedroom floor to stop and listen to what was going on downstairs. At first I was startled, then hearing what type of scream it was made me curious to what my mother could possibly be so excited about. I'd learned the "types" of screams or noises in general my mother made that meant different things like babies cries that mean all sorts of different things like hungry, wet, tired, or "I'm being held by an ugly person give me back to my mom!" cry. My mother had her "I'm PMS'ing" scream, her daily "my show is on get away from me" scream, the "I am hating life in general" scream which could be caused by anything from laundry, to dishes. Then there was the oh-so-rare "excited scream".


Knowing your way around her emotions was the key to getting along and by now I knew how to dance around them pretty well, knowing how to place myself in the right place at the right time. And what exactly I could get away with given the mood of that day. I also learned that by staying in my room with the door open listening to everyone downstairs I could tell generally what was going on without having to ask. My mother's scream was shortly followed with "thats amazing!." I heard some heavy feet on the floor running into the kitchen where my mom and dad were.
"Whats going on?!" my brother Charlie said in general waiting for no one particular in the room to answer him, just hoping that someone would, in the time of his tenchion span while he still cared.
"Jimmy Lahoux is opening for Kenney Chesney in a concert, he won a contest!"
my dad informed him in his "isn't what I'm saying amazing slash important!" tone.
"Wow!" Charlie said "cool!"
in his "I don't really care but I'm excited because my dad is" tone. And went back to his video game in the living room.
"This is going to make my program huge!" I heard my dad say.


Jimmy Lahoux was a local country singer and good friend of my dads along with most of the men in the church where my dad worked. My dad ran events for the church and had a program called Vita Nova where he organized retreats and gave talks about how to be a good Catholic to people, to me his talks were about how "amazing and good a Catholic" he was. He hired Jimmy for the entertainment sometimes, some music before this event, some music to wrap up that event. It didn't suprise me at all that my dad was looking at this opportunity for Jimmy, as an oppurtunity for him. My dad seemed to have the idea that Jimmys spotlight would swing over to his side of the stage evenchally if not instantly.


I'd seen Jimmy play once about four years earlier at the palace theater in town doing a benefit concert for a man in our church who was a young father of 3 slowly dying from cancer. Jimmy had his band on the stage and everyone was standing singing along to already famous Brooks and Dunn songs. He had tight blue jeans, a white button down, and a cowboy hat, which I thought was odd since New England is generally a hick area, but not quite country enough to be wearing a cowboy hat on a daily basis. Still, I remembered thinking Jimmy was pretty good, even though at that concert I was a very self consummed fourteen year old who was way more concerned with why my boyfriend of the time was talking to the cute little blond on the other end on the theater, instead of the reason of the benifit concert itself.


I just rolled my eyes and went back to the bent down position to keep looking for that shirt I couldn't understand why I couldn't find,
"I just had it a second ago".
At the 8 minute mark I begin to get a little frustrated when I'm looking for something, especially if I don't know for sure its what I want to wear yet. Sometimes I could go a half hour looking for a skirt, try it on and then realize it doesn't go with the shoes I knew I wanted to wear.


I couldn't get my mom's scream out of my mind. The last time I heard it was when she got a phone call that one of her friends had a baby girl. I started moving piles of clothes at a time trying to push the process along of finding my shirt. I brushed a big red winter sweater aside and underneath was an aged folded piece of paper. I opened it and it said "Rules & Expectations" in bold at the top of a long contract with lots of bullets and little bold words throughout enphisizing that there is NO gum chewing allowed when talking to fans. This was the contract I got from the lady wolf pack, a female promotional team for the semi-pro football team in our city, in January when I got excepted. I remember when I came home with the news, I was in the car with my mom on the highway driving back from an SAT prep coarse and as soon as I heard the word
"congratulations"
from the woman who I'd had interviewd with I almost screamed and started uncontrolably wiggling around in the passanger seat like a worm being put on a hook. I covered my mouth trying not to scream and not hearing anything the woman from the wolves was saying after that, I regained composure and still smiling ear to ear told her I'd be at the first meeting later that week. I looked over to my mom who was not forcing her smile, but clearly not jumping out of her seat with excitement and she said,
"well congratulations, but calm down you're going to get us into an accident".
I didn't hear that scream of excitement from her, and later that night it never got brought up again.



That next month after a few promotions and some photo shoots with the team and driving to meeting after meeting in the city, I'd come home and go to wherever my mom was no matter what she was doing and tell her every incredible detail. Still no scream, and I walked away defeated but convinced I would get it evenchally if I kept at it. Nothing could impress this woman. Not me.
Fianlly I got something that was full-proof, there was no way this wouldn't make her excited for me. It had to work. To me, I could already hear the scream, as clear as the day my mom's friend's daughter Cecillia was born. A woman I worked with asked me if I had seen the cover of the union leader,
"You're on it" she said.
"No way"!
I said running over to the nearest copy in the stand where I worked.
And there I was, front page, big front picture with all the other girls in our little poses being presented to the city as the new team for the year. The title said "Taking it to the stands" with quotes from some of the girls on the team scattered throughout the article.
"This is amazing" I said to the lady I worked with.
"People don't even get on the cover when they get married, or die"!


I quickly rushed to a phone and called my mom, thinking this HAD to do the trick.
The ring that lasted before she picked up was the longest wait of my life and felt like ten minutes but she finally answered. Then she did and the way she said hello, I could tell she'd seen the caller ID and knew I was calling.
"Mom go to the store and get the union leader I'm on the cover"!
"I already heard, Mr.Duffley called dad this morning after you left for work and told him, can you pick up some milk on your way home?"
At that moment all the way across town even though she was on the phone, I felt a slap in the face that quickly removed the smile I'd had. And there we both sat on the line, me with my jaw on the ground holding my work phone to my ear, and her thinking about milk. My mother could effect me in ways I didn't even know. No reaction was even worse than a bad one. She could take my excitement and multiply it, or make me feel stupid for being excited at all with just a few words, a look, or no reaction. There was no scream.
And I certainly will never open for Kenney Chesney.