My mother comes home. I pour her a cup of black coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg, and perch on the back of the couch while she shakes rain out of her short, silky hair and shrugs out of her tailored leather jacket. She’s wearing chocolate brown slacks and a russet cashmere sweater.
Perched in my hole-ridden jeans and white tank top splattered with blue and green paint, it must amaze her that an elegant woman such as herself could ever have wound up with a ragamuffin daughter.
“Did dinner go well?” I ask her, as she takes her coffee and reaches out to tuck a black, stray strand of hair back into my braid.
“Not quite,” she answers, but she’s smiling at me. “I always love cooking for Jennifer and Cris. Helping out. But sometimes I tire of your fan club.”
I laugh. “Who?”
My mother shrugs and sits down on the couch, slipping off her boots and stretching her long legs (how did I wind up only 5’3”?!) along the cream-colored cushions. “Oh, a college student who wants an internship. Cris kept asking about his communication skills and he kept talking about Mardi Gras.”
“Guess that’s his answer,” I chuckle.
“Jennifer mentioned that I was your mother–obviously my singular claim to fame–”
“And your cooking, and beauty, and theological brilliance, and crazy skills as a CCG player, and—”
“I’ve already completed my Christmas shopping, darling. Your Wii is already wrapped.”
I zip it.
She continues, “He just had to know everything about you. What college. What degree. Your birthday. Your cell phone number—”
“Mom!”
“—What raves you’ve attended. What ferry you take. What color your motorcycle is.”
“Mom!!”
She winks at me. I glare.
She squeezes my hand gently. “Sweetheart, very few people under the age of forty, or outside the realm of celebrity, are going to understand your desire for privacy. Drawing a dozen or even a hundred authors and designers into Mardi Gras isn’t going to stop people from wanting to meet *you.*”
I narrow my eyes. “You didn’t...”
She smirks. “What?”
I groan and collapse along the back of the couch. I can just imagine her growing more and more annoyed by the would-be intern’s rapid fire questions I’ve forbidden her to answer until, finally, in desperation to save her sanity, she plays her only trump card. The picture of me in her wallet.
When I was four.
At Halloween.
Dressed as a teddy bear.
A...
Pink...
Teddy bear.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she stands and pats my head in a way that I know I’m right. “I’ll beat you at a few rounds of Mardi Gras.”
Insult on top of injury. She's one mean mother.
E.J.
