Yes Chelsea, Part 19

*Chelsea Richter, age 33

“Let’s go out, just us girls!”

Life lately has been pretty good for the most part. Work has been going super well with our store’s location opening up across town. I ended up being relocated, but that came with a nifty promotion to general manager and with it, a sexy little pay raise. Well, not so little really. I’m not super rich, but I can say for sure that I have more than a little extra cash lying around these days. Not bad for a girl who spent the first half of her life with nothing and the second half as a single mom trying to get her shit in order.
I am also no longer single either. I’ve got a steady boyfriend who treats me pretty well and makes me laugh, so that’s pretty damn great. He may not make much money, but he does his best to help out when he can and doesn’t at all mind that Tori’s in the picture first and foremost. He does his best to spend time with us, but for a long time the distance was a problem. Tori’s old enough to watch herself at home, but I still don’t like leaving her to go out with Orin and frankly, neither does she. He and I had been talking about it for a while and eventually I tried to broach the subject of him living with us, but she really wasn’t about it at all.

Not that I blame her. She never really knew Pheonix and he's never even tried to talk to her or pay child support, so having a new guy around trying to be with her mom is probably jarring. Plus, it's not like our relationship is any kind of platonic either. When Tori's around we tone it down quite a bit, but in private that man is ALL OVER ME. I don't know what we're gonna do if he moves in to be honest. He likes him some tiddies and ya girl's got some giant mommy milkers that I kinda like to show off for him. Especially since he's constantly taking me out to dinner which means I'm gaining weight again which in my family means BOOBSPLOSION. Oh well. He seems to like it and it's a well documented fact that boyfriends make you fat. I just can't be walking around the house with an ocean of cleavage spilling out of my tops in front of Victoria.

(1)

Honestly, my relationship with my daughter is the only real hiccup I’m having right now. She is going through her bitchy goth phase and just has a problem with absolutely everything and everyone. Every second I spend at home trying to relax is seen as incorrigible laziness and I’m like, “bitch, you’re 12. You don’t know what real work is.” But Tori doesn’t hear that. Nor do I even think she actually cares. She’s just making up excuses for why she’s not off on some grand adventure, AKA going over to her friend’s house all the time and never spending time with me.

She complains when I bring Orin over to the house, but then also complains when I leave her to go out instead. If I stay home to spend time with her, she just refuses to hang out with me and then locks herself in her room. Whenever Orin’s around, we offer for her to spend some time and get to know him, but she doesn’t wanna do that either. Then when I sat her down to talk about him moving in with us, she threw a fit because I was bringing “some strange man” into our home.

She’s also discovered cussing and expects me and other adults to be shocked when she tells us to fuck off like we’ve never heard a bad word before. Then there’s the thing where she has nothing to do but harp on my weight any time I decide to eat something that isn’t a kale smoothie. I just sort of stare at her and enjoy my ice cream even more intensely. Like kid, I don’t know what you expected. I’m not scared of you. Hell, I used to *be* you. And trust me, you talk that good shit while you can because the second your metabolism slows down, you’re gonna blow up like a fucking balloon and I’ll be the there to say I told ya so.

I asked my mom about what to do with her over the phone and she just laughed at me for a while. She told me a bunch of stories that weren’t *quite* accurate about when I was a mean, bitchy teenager, but she got her point across. Tori’s just gonna do whatever she feels gives her a sense of control over her life and the best way she knows to do that is to deny whatever the rule of law is at the time. Which is me. I have become The Man. I am Fascist Fun Barbie and she is just the tiny goth writer/witch/half demon/half angel/fairy vampire fighting to stop me from keeping her down. I actually think it’s kinda rad when she’s not super cringe about it. But of course I can’t tell her that or she’ll completely abandon it and I’ll find her in the woods talking to trees and shit with leaves in her hair and reeking of a week’s worth of B.O. 

So instead of trying to stoop down to her level so she can stomp all over me to feel powerful, I’ve decided to do what my mom did with me and take her out to the mall for some retail therapy/mother/daughter bonding time. She can’t really say no if I tell her to get in the car, and I can make it out like we’re going to only buy stuff for me. Then when she inevitably ends up staring into Hot Topic or Spencers or some shit, I’ll offer to let her go in and pay for something if she wants it. It’s a dirty trick and I feel kinda gross buying my daughter off like that but hey, apparently it worked on me when I was a kid.

(2)

Plus, it’s nostalgic. I’m excited to get to share treasured memories I have with my mom with her. And if she doesn’t like it, then I guess that’s just what I get for being such a brat at that age. But hey, at least I didn’t turn out to be just like my mom.

*Olivia Collins, age 45

“Yes Chelsea, you were EXACTLY like her at that age.”

My eldest daughter amuses me sometimes. She’s hitting that point with her daughter where they just fight and argue all the time and doesn’t even remember what it was like to be that young. She called me the other day to whine about Victoria calling her fat all the time and I was like “I have absolutely no pity for you.” I still gave her some motherly advice and suggested she take her to do stuff that she enjoyed doing at that age, but I’m slightly worried that she’s going to just try to act like a teenager herself and ruin it. Chelsea’s sweet, but doesn’t always think things through before she does them. Oh well.

It's not like I can really talk about reclaiming one’s youth later on in life. I myself have been enjoying a more indulgent lifestyle along with my husband Greg. I’m not sure that alt cougar hotwife was the direction I would have gone in had I not had to give up my emo aesthetic when I had Chelsea, but I definitely found my way back into the eyeliner drawer after I turned 40. But now instead of rebellious teenager writing poetry about how sad I am, I’m constantly browsing pinterest and tiktok for sexy corsets and cute skirts to wear around town or sexy things to wear on little dates and hookups.

(3)

Obviously I keep my personal life a bit quieter, but I’m pretty sure my granddaughter know what’s going on to some extent. Victoria comes over sometimes for weekends so Chelsea can go on dates or do whatever she needs to do. It’s great for me because I love that kid to death. So she watches Alice and keeps her company while I get my work done, and in return I spoil her to the brink of death. I always thought it was weird that grandma’s would call it their job to spoil their grandkids, but I suppose it’s a lot easier to do when you’ve got nothing but disposable income and a kid that you’re not going to have to deal with in a few days. Then again, I think that having Alice keeps me from going too crazy, lest I end up with Chelsea 2.0 stealing my credit card when I’m 55. I already worry about what kind of example I'm setting considering how often I take her to the mall with me. I try to teach her that money isn't the answer to her problems, but she's still little and I'm kind of afraid of what she's putting together when we're constantly throwing money at extravagant expenses at this store or that. Then again, I used shopping to bond with Chelsea and she turned out just fine, so maybe I'm worried over nothing.

(4)

But I digress….There was a point where I left the two of them alone in mine and Greg’s room and they just so happened to go into the walk in closet to play. With Alice it’s no big deal because she’s only 7 and doesn’t really know what she’s looking at yet so I didn’t even think about it. But I look up from my computer to check on them and I see Tori rifling through my corsets and sexy outfits with these huge, bugged out eyes and I had to try to do some damage control and explain that grandma isn’t a hooker.

It turned out pretty well, honestly. Instead of trying to hide it, I told her that I like dressing up all gothy and looking hot when I go out sometimes and she just thought it was the coolest fucking thing in the world. So that day we played dress up and I put her in some of my smaller, pg-13 stuff and then played with makeup for a bit. We took some pictures together in our dark makeup and corsets and it was a ton of fun.

I gotta say, as much as I regret having a daughter so early, I’m really happy that I’m still young enough to these kinds of things with my daughter and granddaughter. This didn't turn out too bad after all.

*Victoria Richter, age 12….and a half.

“No Victoria, one slice of cheesecake isn’t going to make you fat.”

(5)

I feel like I was born to the wrong parents. Maybe I was switched at birth and my real family is out there somewhere with some preppy little cheerleader in their house ruining their lives. I should be like…exploring cemeteries and haunted houses and learning spells from my coven, but instead all I get to do is sit around and watch my mom watch tv and play Animal Crossing. I mean I like Animal Crossing too but my mom’s an adult. She shouldn’t be sitting around playing video games all day. She should be getting lunch ready for school or going to college or something but instead she just sits around all day.
It's even worse because she makes me sit with her while she does it because…I don’t know. She thinks it’ll make me like her more? Whoo. Yay. The couch. My favorite.

I try to tell her that she should get up and do something with herself but she just tells me “Waaaahh, BuT I Go To WoRk! Boohoo poor me!” She’s an adult. You’re SUPPOSED to go to work. It’s your JOB. Plus she works at a clothes store. Oh noooooo. Not clooooothes! “Oh no, I have to stand around in girly outfits all day and tell people to buy stuff. My job is so hard and now I can’t walk when I get home.” Ugh. It’s so annoying.

Now she wants to bring her weird boyfriend to live with us even though I like barely know who he is. They never really try to do anything with me that *I* want to do because they’re just trying to force me to like him so he can move in to our place because his apartment is tiny and sad because he’s a loser with a crappy job. A real man should let his girlfriend move in with him, not the other way around.

It's like…if she wanted a boyfriend she should be talking to my REAL dad instead of like….SHOPPING for a new one. My mom doesn’t really talk about him much except for saying I look like him and that he left when I was about to be born. But if my mom treated him like she treats me then it’s no wonder he left. I fucking hate her.

Everything is always like, “No Victoria, you can’t go see your friends because I want you here. No Victoria, I’m not going to listen to you when you try to warn me about stuff. No Victoria, I’m not going to let you be yourself or do anything you want because I want you to turn into a fat Barbie doll just like ME!!!”

Bitch.

I wish I could live with my grandma instead. She’s NOTHING like my mom and is into all kinds of cool stuff. Like she was showing me all her old spellbooks and pictures of her from when she was in high school and I’m like woah. My grandma’s totally a witch! And she’s like super pretty and dresses all goth and stuff and it’s bad ASS. It makes me wonder if she’s actually related to my mom but she said I wasn’t adopted so….I guess. I think I just have more in common with her than I do my mom.

My grandpa is really nice too. He takes us to do grandpa things like camping and hiking and to the aquarium and stuff so that’s cool. He’s got a study with lots of books and it always smells like leather and a campfire in there, so me and my aunt will sometimes go in there to play and just look at stuff.

That’s the other thing. I have an aunt, but she’s younger than me. She’s only 7. I guess both my mom and grandma had babies when they were like 15 so when I was really little my grandma wanted another baby with my grandpa. So now I babysit my little aunt when I come over and we play all kinds of games and I’ll like teach her how to do stuff that my friends and like older girls do and stuff. So we’re really more like sisters than aunt and…niece. Which is a little weird, but whatever. I’m used to it.

It's so different than my house over there. My grandparents have so much to do and they’ll actually hang out with us, but my own mom doesn’t really want to do anything with me but watch tv and try to like….get me to like the things that only she likes. She just doesn’t get me AT ALL.

/sigh

Are we SURE I wasn’t adopted?