Alternate universe, please send down your spaceship. I want off this planet.
“Foxy!” Carly’s screech made me drop my hand and sag, defeated, against the door. It shut with a thud, or else that was the sound of my brain exploding.
Abruptly, my mother stopped dancing. Kizzy, however, only whooped louder and dropped it down low to grind against her bowl like she was three seconds away from a Kitchen Aid-induced orgasm.
These were things I would never, ever be able to scrub out of my mind.
“Hey there. Wasn’t expecting you so early.” With a pointed glance at my now shellshocked mother, Carly ripped off the work schedule I’d tacked on the fridge. “You have another hour of work. And class. And umm, this isn’t what it looks like, I swear.”
“No? What is it then?”
My capacity to be shocked by Carly and Kizzy’s antics was apparently boundless. They’d stunned me with bedazzled penis cakes and all manner of other shenanigans, and every time I went down like a green fighter from a one-two punch.
But my mother. My mother was a prim and proper attorney’s wife who wore pearls and pumps to her society luncheons. In fact, she still wore the pearls and the pumps right now. Unfortunately, they didn’t go so well with her black underwear set.
I turned away. Dear God, my eyes. My eyes.
Even in the midst of my confused, semi-nauseous state, I was grateful too. If these crazy girls had made my mom laugh and dance for a few minutes, they were damn near miracle workers. Cynthia Knox laughed about as much as Mia had earlier this year, before I’d come into her life. My mother definitely didn’t dance and sing in her underwear, unless I’d been spared that indignity in my childhood.
So I supposed I shouldn’t act like a dick. I’d done enough of that for one week.
Bracing myself, I faced the kitchen again. I was relieved to see Kizzy had stopped getting intimate with her piece of stainless steel and was now slouched against the counter with a muffin wedged halfway into her mouth. Carly was fiddling with the old school radio Mia had brought along from their last apartment. And my mom had abandoned her container of nuts in favor of rotating her wedding band around her finger, her gaze centered anywhere but on me.
“Mia told me you were here,” I said, stepping forward in spite of every instinct that shouted for me to leave. The girls had been handling this situation better than I ever could. “I’m taking the rest of the evening off,” I said into the sudden silence as Carly snapped off the radio.
“We’ll just be in the other room.” Carly grabbed Kizzy’s arm.
Kizzy didn’t move. “Why? I’m eating. What if I want more muffins?”
“Bring another one.”
“I’m really hungry. One more might not be enough.”
Carly grabbed the brown bread box and shoved it at Kizzy before tugging her down the hall. “If you need us…” She trailed off and shut the door on Kizzy’s squawking. Even a mouthful of muffin couldn’t shut that girl up.
Gotta say I kind of admired her for it, because I felt as if I’d gone mute.
My mother picked up the half empty wineglass on the counter and tipped it back. “I’m not drunk,” she said when she turned to meet my stare.
“Didn’t say you were.?
?? Honestly, I didn’t know how she’d had time to get drunk, unless Mia had chosen to leave out a lot of the story. That was probably par for our course lately.
“I just had one glass. That’s all I needed.”
“Understandable.”
“You don’t understand, Tray. How could you, when I don’t?” She sat down at the battered kitchen table Mia had dragged with her from her last apartment and braced her elbows on the scarred wood. “They didn’t ask me if I wanted to sing or dance. The moment Mia left, they just turned on the music and pulled me into the circle as if I was one of their friends.”
Yeah, no one tended to break into song around Mia under normal circumstances. But I was still more than a little surprised that my mother had danced and sang without being under the influence of a hell of a lot more than a few sips of wine. “How’d you lose your clothes?”
Her weak smile turned into a weak laugh. “I guess I was just in the moment.” She gestured to the living room. “They’re on the couch.”
The neat pile of garments fit her personality, at least. She was well known for her military corners and knife pleats, even if a staff at home meant she rarely had to make beds or fold clothes. “Want me to get them?”
“I can do it. I shouldn’t be sitting around like this.”
“It’s no worse than a bathing suit.” Maybe I hadn’t turned into a 100% grade A dick after all. Hope still remained.