"For my mother to stop calling 'kiddo,'" I answered, looking up from my plate with a cheeky smile.
She narrowed her eyes at me, taking a sip from her coffee, obviously stalling until she thought up a good comeback. She came up with this:
"Smartass."
"That's the best you could do?" I said.
"Yes," she said, bowing her head in mock shame. "I'm just not like you, oh King of Wittiness and Quick Comebacks."
"In good time, my child. Read your age old copies of Mad Magazine and in good time," I said, my smart smile widening.
She looked back up at me.
"How did you know I had those?" she asked.
"It's not important," I said, recalling the rather obvious cardboard box I had found in the cellar one day marked "Mad Magazines."
"Just answer the question," she said.
"Which one?" I asked in return.
"What do you mean which one?" she said back, confused.
"You asked me two questions. You asked me what I want for my birthday and you asked me how I found your Mad magazines," I told her.
She rolled her eyes. "The one about your birthday."
"Ah, yes," I said, sitting back in my chair and beginning to think about it. The problem with expecting me to answer verbally is that I can never just think of something on the spot like that. Put a piece of paper and a pencil in front of me and I can have both sides covered in less than ten minutes. But just come out and ask me and it could take hours.
"And the answer to this question would be...?" she said, making the infamous, "I'm getting impatient" gesture with her hands.
"A car?" I said.
She rolled her eyes.
"Why? It's not like you could drive it," she said, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms, raising her eyebrows at me in a cocky manner.
"Your point being...?"
"Fine. Then we'll get my father to give you his shitty old Buick LaSabre," she said. Now it was her turn to get a cheeky smile. "Or maybe my brother's old Plymouth Caravelle."
"The one with the gray hood and the rest of the thing is that weird maroon color?" I said, vaguely recalling my uncle's car. The last time I had seen it was when I was seven or eight years old.
"Yes, I believe that's the one."
I snorted. "Please. That thing's a death trap. It's all rusted out on the bottom. Even if he did stil have it for some reason that couldn't possibly be an intelligent one, you wouldn't let me drive it," I said.
"Sure I would," she said back, looking totally serious.
"You would not."
"I would so. It looks a heck of a lot more innocent than tying you down to the driver's seat and pushing the car over a cliff somewhere or cutting the break lines or something," she said.
Yup. That's the type of relationship I have with my mother.
"There's no cliffs in Rochester," I said.
"No, not in Rochester. But, if I do recall correctly, there is one in Sodus called Chimney Bluffs," she replied.
"Next item," I said. "It's scaring me how well thought out this all is."
"Okay, next item," she agreed, gesturing for me to go on.
"The Tonic CD," I said.
"Tonic?"
"Yeah, they sing that song, 'If You Could Only See,'" I told her. I began to sing some of the lyrics. Terribly off-key. I'm one of those people who have been offered money to not sing.
"Sounds like a girly band to me," she said. "With a stupid name besides. Who the hell would think of calling their band Tonic?"
"Those guys," I replied.
"Well, what signifigance does it have to the band?" she asked me.
"Why does it have to have a signifigance?" I retorted, trying not to admit that I didn't know because admitting that to Gina is admitting defeat and that's not exactly something you want to do.
"Think about it," she said. "A band called Tonic has to have some reason for calling themselves Tonic. Are they a bunch of drunks or something?"
"No. I hope not anyway."
"Then why would the call themselves Tonic??"
"Why are you asking me? And anyway, Miss Monkees, I don't recall any of your favorite bands having intelligent names either," I retorted.
"What's the name of the CD?" she asked, obviously wanting to get off the subject.
"Lemon Parade."
"Oh no, they're not named after an alcoholic beverage, are they?" she sarcastically. "What else?"
"I don't know," I answered.
As I sat there, thinking of more things that I would like for my birthday--a list that had been about two miles long a month ago and was suddenly reduced to one CD now that I was just being asked instead of using the paper and pencil method--my thoughts began to wander. They wandered to my brother.
I usually don't really think about him around any other time other than our birthday. I always wondered what he was doing that particular day. Stuff like how his parents were going to celebrate his sixteenth(next year, this year is our fifteenth), and what kinds of traditions they had for birthdays. What kinds of things he got, whether or not he even knew that the fourteenth of March was his birthday, and whether or not he thought of me.
"You're thinking about your brother again, aren't you?" Gina said softly, probably noticing my expression.
"No," I lied. I knew that Gina felt guilty every time I talked about him. I think it's because she holds herself responsible for the fact that we're not together like we should be.
"Yeah you are," she said, seeing right through me. "Look, Parker, if I could bring him to you in some way or if I could get his phone number or even his e-mail address so that you two could talk, I would. But I can't."
"I know," I said. "I'm not asking you to do anything like that. It's just that I can't help but think about him around this time."
She nodded.
"I know," she said.
I wasn't so sure she did but I didn't say anything. Instead, I looked up from my hands where my eyes had been focused throughout this little piece of our conversation to look out the window near where our kitchen table is and I saw my reflection in the glass. I wanted to reach out and touch that reflection. Say hello to it. Find out its name. But I couldn't. Not yet, anyway.