She’s wearing slim-fit jeans, a button-up pink shirt with a popped collar, and designer flats. Her jewelry are all pieces I’ve seen before, her make-up is classic, and her hair is the same blonde it’s been for years. Of course, that’s because she gets it colored every four weeks to prevent any grays from popping through.
“Did you get a haircut?” I ask, realizing it’s not only styled differently but a few inches shorter.
Mom fusses with the locks at the nape of her neck. “I did! Theresa talked me into trying something a bit edgier. Is it too much?”
She makes it sound as though Theresa hacked into her hair and gave her something trendy like Jazmyn’s shaggy mullet. It’s nothing like that. It’s simple layers that she’s currently styled into cute flips. “It looks great!” I reassure her.
“Thanks! I’ve got to keep up with that handsome stud I’m married to, you know,” she teases.
Mom and Dad celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary last year and are as ridiculously, grotesquely in love with each other as the day they married. Dad would never so much as look at another woman. Hell, I don’t think he knows they exist. Even in their sixties, we’ve caught Dad giving Mom’s butt an affectionate pat when she walks by. It’s horrifying and adorable, and probably the reason they have five children. That, and Mom wanted to keep trying for a girl. All in all, my parents set up all of us kids for an uphill battle with relationships because we’ve seen the real deal and won’t settle for anything less.
“Yeah, ’cuz Dad notices your hair so much,” I counter. She beams, knowing I’m right. As affectionate as Dad is, checking out Mom’s hair is not high on his to-do list.
“What about dinner, though? Between you and me, I think Joel is going to have some big news for us.” Her eyes are big with excitement as she baits me into asking for details.
Joel is my brother closest in age to me. He’s a research scientist who works in something to do with plastic recycling. I think. Honestly, when he starts talking about his work, it mostly sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher to me—wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah. He’s got a sense of humor, but you have to be pretty high-brow to understand the chemistry puns he throws out as though they’re knock-knock jokes.
I wave my hand at her, telling her to spill it because I know she wants to. “Well, since you’re twisting my arm,” she says dryly, “Joel and Keilah are taking a trip this weekend to the beach.”
She gives me a pointed look as though I totally know what that means. I wrinkle my brow. “Uh, good for them?”
Mom’s swats at my leg. “Jayme! He’s going to ask her to marry him!” she explains as if a beach vacation automatically translates to wedding bells.
Though she’s probably right. My brother and Keilah have only been dating for a few months, but they’re both analytical and probably decided that marriage made the most sense for their taxes or something logical like that. “You think so? It’s pretty quick.”
“Sometimes, you know instantly,” she says dreamily. “I knew with your father.”
I snort, nearly shooting iced coffee out of my nose as I laugh uproariously. “You did not! You’ve told us the story of how you met him at a party and thought he was a pompous jerk.”
It’s not a story they’ve told often, but I’ve heard it enough times that I know Mom and Dad met at a college party. Dad was the big man on campus, and Mom was a studious library lover. The gregarious business major and the perfect pre-med student . . . not exactly an automatic match made in heaven.
Mom pouts. “Well, he was a bit overconfident. But I knew on our first date when he let me win at mini-golf.”
That I do believe. Dad is an expert golfer, and Mom can barely hit the ball.
“Sounds like you were an easy sell,” I joke. “What about everyone else?”
Keeping up with my brothers, their wives, and kids is a full-time job. We have a group chat without our parents, but we mostly trade memes and tease each other so I’m not always up to date on the real stuff the way Mom is.
“Well, let’s see . . .” She starts at the top with my eldest brother, James, and works her way down through John, Jordan, and she’s already told me about Joel. Yes, five kids and five J names. I don’t know why my parents tortured us that way. It was a constant roll call until they got the name they actually meant to say.
“James and Yuki bought a small property in Hokkaido. Kent wants to snowboard, and Yuki felt like it would be a good way to spend some time in the winter with her family.” I nod along, not wanting to interrupt her, though it’s cool that my nephew will get to spend some time on the mountain in Japan.