The Latest Adventures of Audra Chantal & Company
So Audra has this new boyfriend, right? And we totally love him and think he's a great guy, and for the most part, we're understanding of the fact that it's a new relationship and she's going to want to spend a lot of time with him.
But we're starting to draw the line on some of her antics.
For example, technically, they aren't even boyfriend/girlfriend, but they are sixteen, sexually active with one another, and they hold hands, kiss, etc. So basically, they're boyfriend/girlfriend, but they don't like the title. However, she wants to complain that it's annoying for him to refer to her as his "ladyfriend" or "that chick he messes around with" when introducing her to his friends and other people he knows, but that she has never met before. To me, even calling yourselves "friends with benefits," especially at their age, kind of makes you sound like a slut. And they are way more than "just friends" so what else are they going to be? And why are you complaining, when all you're doing is draping yourself over a guy who isn't your boyfriend, and when you're having sex and getting drunk or fucked up with a guy who isn't your boyfriend? At sixteen.
Trust me, I wasn't perfect at that age, and I doubt most teenagers in this day and age are, but still.
And Audra has a long list of behaviors just like this, and they've gradually gotten worse as she grew older. Like the fact that she was nine when she gave her first blow job, albeit not entirely willingly, but I would like to know how a nine-year-old thought it was perfectly okay to tell her mother she was going out with her best friend, to stay the night at said best friend's house, and then after they applied make-up and put on best friend's skimpiest clothes to make them "look sexy," end up in the back of a then-sixteen-year-old's Tahoe, each giving a different teenager a blow job.
Let's add to the list that Audra has been stealing alcohol from my mother since she was about ten, and that sneaking out into the front yard to hang out with guys who were much older, but considered "cool" because they drove was totally fine at age twelve. It's also okay to lie to your mother about where you're going at age thirteen, and to spend all night out with whoever your best friend was dating at the moment, no matter what his age was, and continue to lie to both mothers at that point.
So where are the parents when these pre-teens are running around, being called prostitutes by my friends? Um, at home, sound asleep, thinking their daughter is perfectly safe and sound asleep at her best friend's house.
And where does this lead us to at age sixteen?
Well, Audra hasn't been home in twenty-four hours. In fact, you could probably count the number of hours she has been home on one hand. I'm twenty and I don't get out half as much as she does, and while I'm stuck at home, slowly going crazy, she's discovered that she's not allergic to weed after all, and that she can drive while only slightly under the influence of alcohol. Oh, and that she loves it when she and her "guyfriend" have sex while he's fucked up on Xanax.
My mother, a nurse with years of experience behind her, has found pills even she can't identify....
Hang on. Got paged to leave.
Okay, I'm back. So yeah, Audra's become a little hellian, and we're all sort of pissed off. Well, last night, she paid someone to cover her work shift so she could go take a nap at Frankie's. First, none of us have ever skipped work, no matter what the job, to spend it with some guy. Second, take a nap? Are you serious?!
But she did. Later that night, Mom gets in touch with her and says be home at nine, we don't want to spend all night waiting up on you. Of course, after all week at Kairos, all Mom really does is take a muscle relaxer and pass out. However, Dave was up til around midnight, sick to his stomach, so he was able to answer when Audra called after ten to say that "it was raining too hard" and the truck overheated, so she was just going to stay put. It didn't fly, not then or this morning, but Dave's not one to argue and the poor man was up past his bedtime vomiting, so he just said okay, be home soon, and hung up.
Well, rather than wait an hour until the rain cleared up, or call back to ask for someone to come pick her up, Audra traipses back to Frankie's and spends the night. When I get up at five-thirty this morning, I find her bedroom door wide open. I figured Mom would've noticed when she got up around six, but instead, she excuses her lack of being observant as, "I enjoy the silence so much, I'm not entirely sure I want her here," and doesn't notice until about six-thirty, when I finally say something.
At that point, we each grab a cellphone and start calling Audra off and on. Her phone's dead, which is both strange and eh, because she has a charger, but of course she's not going to use it, because she's trying to spend as much time as possible with her dude and needs an excuse to do so.
And at around eight-thirty or nine, she finally calls back. Her phone died, she says, and Mom replies, be home before us. She explains to Audra that we - Mom, Dave, and I - are headed to Florence to pick Emma up from Dad's, and then to take Emma to a doctor's appointment. Audra is required to be home before we get there, and she is to clean up her room during her spare time. Aka, she's officially grounded.
Which Audra complains about, saying that Frankie's mom was going to take them to Point Mallard that day, and could she please do that and then come home? There'll be plenty of time, she claims. Mom knows different, and says she has no reason to say yes to that, especially after the way Audra's acted here lately.
Well, two o'clock rolls around, and Mom, Dave, Emma, and I all arrive back at the house. We only have a spare moment or so, but in the time it takes for me to change clothes and for us to swap over into the Camry to go to two more appointments and do a little shopping, it doesn't go unnoticed that Audra has not come home. When this is first mentioned, Mom offers up that maybe she's at work - looking back, probably praying she was at work - but I'm quick to point out that Audra's work uniform is laying on her bed, and there is no sign whatsoever that anyone other than me has been in her room.
We leave so we won't be late, and again, try in vain to contact Audra. Thirty minutes go by, and Emma mentions that she has been casually texting Audra, who says she is running to the bank because she owes a friend money. Mom calls Audra, chews her out, and demands that she be at home before Dave leaves her work. "I want you to hand him the keys as SOON as you walk through the door, young lady," she says.
Dave leaves for work at four. Still no sign of Audra.
We get home around seven. Still no sign of Audra.
Now I'm getting pissed, and I've already mentioned that whether she likes it or not - and we're aware it's not - this is the point in the game where Mom sucked it up and used Melanie to help her drive downtown and pick up the Pontiac, then hide it in a random parking garage, when a 16-year-old me decided to run away to my dad's. This is the point in the game when Mom sucked it up, drove around until four in the morning, and then told a 16-year-old Lorna that she had two options: Get in the car and go home that instant, or get in the car with the sheriff's deputy and spend the night in juvenile hall. It's kind of obvious how we approached the situation, because I got the Pontiac back and Lorna has never spent a night in juvie. So it's Audra's turn, and I must admit, I'm excited to see what happens.
At the very least, I offer, take the truck away. Turn her cellphone off. Make sure that Audra is forced to stay home with no contact to the outside world, just like the rest of us.
Mom doesn't say anything in return, but at nine o'clock tonight, she interrupts the beginning of this post to tell me that she wants to know where Frankie lives. That she wants me to be the one to go with her to pick up the truck, and even though she started to cry and talk about how much she hated that she was being forced to do this, she would, if it came down to it, call the police and tell Audra to spend the night in juvenile hall. That if she didn't want to come home, she could easily become a ward of the state, and as far as she was concerned, Audra had stolen the truck and run away.
Of course, we didn't make it halfway before I call Em to once again make sure that Audra was not at work, and discover that Audra was at home. This pisses me off only because I wanted to see flashing lights, and if Mom and Audra fight at home, no matter where it is in the house, all Mom will think about is how easy it is to walk back to her room and shut the door, and Audra will play passive-aggressive, shouting that she gave every excuse in the book, that she was totally in the right, and then willingly giving up her cellphone and whatever else Mom wants to take from her. In the end, no punishment has been made, and Audra will wait patiently, continuing to plot her next escape, her next week away from home, probably staying longer and digging herself deeper next time, but in the end, being no different or better than they were before.
~~~
ETA: Looks like I was right. They shouted, I filled Lorna in on the day's events, and now Mom and Audra are happily co-habitating in the kitchen upstairs, talking like old friends, and absofuckinglutely NOTHING has changed. *eyeroll*