Free Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce Page B

the margin.
    I giggled until I got the hiccups. After a fifth read through of the paragraph that proved no more illuminating than the first, I threw the paper to the floor, crawled down under my comforter, and decided to sleep until New Year’s.

    I woke from NyQuil-sodden dreams to find my mother sitting at my bedside, her Chantilly perfume and vanilla lotion thick in the trapped bedroom air.
    “Honey,” she said, cupping my face as she would a child’s. “You look dreadful .”
    “I’b sick.”
    “I know. That nice groundskeeper told me you were in bad shape.”
    “The groundskeeper?”
    “That young man with the ponytail out shoveling the driveway. He let me in.”
    I squinted up at her, forcing my eyes to focus.
    “He’s not a groundskeeper, Mob. That’s Zoë’s friend I was telling you about.”
    “ That’s Eli?” Her face went through a variety of contortions as she reformulated her previous impression of Eli. “Amy, you can’t possibly be serious about him.”
    “I don’t even know him.” Rousing from my drugged stupor, I frowned. “Why are you here?”
    “I had a Luna Landing in Columbus and was planning to do some Christmas shopping, so I thought, well, why not just come and pick you up to join me.” She went to the window, opened the blinds. “And it’s a good thing I did. You’re in absolutely no condition to drive home.”
    I rolled over to avoid the sun. “I can dribe, Mob. I hab a cold. I’b dot paralyzed.”
    “I’ll not have you driving under the influence.” She lifted the half-empty bottle of NyQuil as proof. “You can’t handle medications. Never could—your system is too sensitive.”
    She went to the bathroom to throw the bottle out. Her voice carried from the hall. “Whenever I had to give you those little blue pills for your ear infections, I’d find you sleepwalking in the basement searching for your Cabbage Patch dolls in the pantry. And then there was the time with the wisdom teeth.”
    She returned to the bedroom, her silver, sparkling Luna Lady makeup bag in hand. The front was emblazoned with the Luna emblem: black contours that suggested the figure of a woman holding a sphere in the crook of her robed elbow.
    “What was that vile drug the dentist made you take? Viacon? You lay on the floor in the bathroom laughing so hard you couldn’t breathe. I thought you were having a mental breakdown. Here. I brought you something for your Rosacea.”
    “I hab decided I hate by life,” I announced.
    “ Hate is such a strong word. How about some soup?”
    I examined my mother’s Luna uniform: a pants suit with thick-set heels dyed a matching periwinkle. I still wasn’t sure if it was morning or afternoon. My mother’s schedule had been anything but routine since she’d become a salesperson.
    As a Luna representative, it had been my mother’s duty to travel the tri-state with her toolbox of colors, painting women in wrinkle-reducing, sunray-blocking cosmetics while peddling Luna Lady philosophy:
    A Luna Lady never forgets she is a celestial body.
    A Luna Lady is like the moon, beautiful but inconspicuous, a reflection of the natural beauty shining around her.
    A Luna Lady lives in rhythm with that heavenly body’s monthly cycle.
    It was feminine mystique with boysenberry lip gloss at fifteen bucks a pop, hardly the material for a First Fundamentalist. My mother enclosed a tea-stained scrap of paper quoting Proverbs 30:31 in each complimentary blush compact to redeem all business transactions of any of That New Ageism. I assured her I didn’t think her morals compromised; all that mattered to me was that she had finally found work she loved.
    She made herself busy in the kitchen while I showered. Washing with Luna Bubble Grit was like using sand for soap. I came out of the shower scratchy and red.
    “I feel sunburned.” I accepted the bowl of soup she’d heated.
    Zoë was at the table already halfway through the bowl my mother had heated for her. “You look