Free B00AAOCX2E EBOK by Jaycee DeLorenzo

emerged from her bedroom, attempting to fasten the clasp of a chunky turquoise necklace around her neck.
    “Good, I was hoping you’d get here early.” Her hazel eyes took in the overstuffed duffel bag I’d dragged in behind me, and her mouth curved on one side. “Ah, let me guess.” She cleared her throat dramatically and adopted the tone she assumed that all twenty-somethings used. “Mom, can I, like, do some laundry while I’m here?”
    I did some tone-adopting of my own. “Why, of course you can, my poor, starving college student of a daughter, since I know those evil people at the apartment complex make you pay a whole two-fifty a load. The capitalistic pigs! I say we break out the placards and initiate a full-fledge protest.”
    “My daughter, the smart ass.”
    “I learned from the best.” I pecked my mom’s cheek. “You look really nice.”
    Mom wore an airy, cobalt-blue skirt, with a white V-neck sweater that wrapped around her slender waist, revealing just enough flat tummy to display the beaded hoop protruding from her belly button. A thin chain threaded through the hoop rode low on her narrow hips. A pair of funky, metallic-blue strappy sandals were on her feet and a blue silk flower rested over the top of her left ear.
    Back in high school, I had been mortified by the way my mom dressed, since it was so much younger and hipper than my classmates’ mothers. Only in the last few years had I come to realize it was because she
was
so much younger than all of the other mothers. She’d gotten pregnant with me when she was only sixteen, and had just celebrated her thirty-eighth birthday in August.
    “New outfit?” I asked.
    “This old thing?” Mom lowered her head to examine the clasp of her necklace.
    I smirked. She was an even worse liar than I was.
    “Dammit. Could you…?” Mom waved the necklace by its ends. “I still have perfume oil on my hands.”
    Stepping behind her, I smoothed her short, layered brown hair to the side, and worked on the clasp. It took a few tries before it caught.
    “Thanks, baby girl.” She adjusted the necklace so that it dipped into her cleavage.
    I trailed her through the dining room to the kitchen. The antique maple table was already set with Mom’s special tribal dish set and a tea rose centerpiece. Upon noticing the number of place settings, I drew up short. “Who’s the fourth place setting for?”
    “Oh, his son has just moved into town and will be joining us.”
    “Oh, he has a son? And what’s his name, again?” Actually, I had yet to hear it a first time. My mother had been keeping the identity of her boyfriend strangely secret, refusing to tell me the slightest detail, with the exception of saying “He makes my toes curl.” She claimed she didn’t want to jinx the relationship, but I suspected something more was behind her secrecy. The last time she’d gotten this twitchy about a boyfriend, it was because she knew I wouldn’t approve.
    Mom’s eyes widened and she glanced at her watch. “Oh, hell, is it six forty-five, already? I need to get my dinner finished.”
    I arched an eyebrow as Mom beat a hasty retreat for the kitchen. Leaning against the door jamb, I crossed my legs at the ankles and studied her as she fussed at the center island.
    Unconventional
was the term most often associated with my mom. The words
scattered
and
strange
rated up there, too. I preferred
eccentric
.
    Mom was a study in contrasts. She considered herself an environmentalist, yet she drove a Dodge pick-up that guzzled gas like a jet plane and leaked a quart of oil a month. She preached pacifism, yet she had been arrested on no less than six occasions for acts of violence and disturbing the peace. She had to work as an independent doula because no hospital would hire her. She considered herself a feminist, having lectured me my entire life on being independent and never compromising myself for a man, yet every time she got involved with someone new, she took to the