Misty (Wildflowers 1)

"She whined the last part, sounding hurt that I had met his mother before he had met mine. Ever since the divorce, it was like my mother was on an Easter egg hunt for possible ways to make me feel guilty.

"'First, he's not my boyfriend, Mother,' I told her. 'Second, I'm not spending all that much time with him. And, third, you never asked to meet any of my other friends and I've been to lots of their houses and met their parents, too.'

"'That was different,' she replied. My mother always nods after she says something she wants you to agree with. It's like she's coaching your thoughts.

"'Why?' Imanted to know. Of course she was disappointed I would question her. The corners of her mouth dropped.

"'Because your father was still living here. For God's sake, Misty, surely you're old enough to realize that all the responsibility is mine now,' she moaned with a sigh to suggest the great weight that had been dumped on her fragile but perfect little shoulders.

"Of course, I knew she was being overly dramatic just because she wanted to see what sort of boy I was with. Nevertheless, I brought Charles Allen home and introduced him to her."

I turned to the girls

"I should tell you that my mother is in the running for the title, World's Biggest Flirt. As soon as she saw that Charles Allen wasn't the son of Frankenstein, she went into her Scarlett O'Hara act. I nearly puked up lunch.

"Right off, however, she made a gross mistake. She started calling him Charlie. He grimaced in pain every time she did it, but he was too polite to say anything to her.

"Since I had told her Charles Allen's family was very wealthy, she just had to give him the grand tour of our home, pointing out the expensive paintings, our Baldwin piano, her Lalique collection, even furniture and rugs that she called imported and very pricey. I know she thought she was impressing him, but one look at his face would tell you he couldn't have been more bored.

"Then she embarrassed me to the point of tears.

"'It's so hard being the mother of a teenage girl when you, yourself, keep being mistaken for her older sister,' she said with great flair, fluffing her hair and turning her shoulders. 'I keep up with all the music and read many of the same magazines Misty reads. We like the same shows on television, too, don't we, Misty?'

"'I don't watch all that much television,' I muttered and she giggled like a silly teenager.

"'Of course she does, Charlie.'

"'His name is Charles Allen, Mother, not Charlie,' I corrected.

"'Oh, fiddlesticks,' she cried, threading her arm through his to lead him out to our patio. She was practically leaning on him. 'That's what his parents call him,' she lectured. 'You don't like to be addressed so formally, do you, Charlie?'

"'Actually,' Charles Allen said, 'I'm used to it, Mrs. Foster.'

"'Oh pleeeeze,' she cried, grimacing as if she had just seen a dead rat, 'don't call me Mrs. Foster. That makes me sound so old. Call me Gloria. All of Misty's friends do,' she added, which was another lie in bright neon lights.

"He glanced back to me for help and I told my mother he had come over to help me study and we didn't have all that much time because he had to be home early. She looked like we had told her she had two days to live or something.

" `Oh,' she said, reluctantly releasing his arm and stepping back. 'Of course. I know how important all that is. I just wanted to make Charlie feel at home,' she said.

"For one small second, I felt sorry for her. I actually thought she was suffering loneliness and I felt bad about cutting it all short like that, but Charles Allen was very grateful for my rescue.

"We went up to my room and I apologized for my mother's behavior. He fell back on my bed with his arms out and stared up at the ceiling for a moment.

" 'I hate to be fawned over like that,' he finally said. 'I have an aunt who always does that. As soon as she comes into the house, she always finds me and hugs me so tightly, I nearly suffocate. She wears this heavy perfume, too, the kind that you continue to smell for hours after she leaves a room. She loves messing my hair and keeping me trapped on her lap, wrapping her long, thin bony arms around me like some sort of octopus.'

"He sat up with a big smile on his face.

" 'What?' I asked.

"'Whenever I complain about her now, my mother always reminds me that once when I was about three, I urinated on her, right through my clothes. It didn't stop her from scooping me up the next time, though. She's my mother's older sister, a spinster. She took care of my grandmother for years after my grandmother's stroke so we have to put up with all of my aunt's eccentricities, and believe me, there are plenty of them.'

"He paused and looked around my room, nodding as he gazed at the armoire, the vanity table, the computer, and my closets and mirrors, as well as my posters, wall of family photos and doll collection.

"'Your room is just as I had imagined it would be,' he told me.

"'What do you mean?' I asked. If he had said it's cute, I would have thrown him out the window right then and there."

"What did he say?" Jade asked.