Free A Different Kind of Normal by Cathy Lamb Page A

Elsie does what she wants and all women wish they could be an Elsie sometimes with her men, her designer heels, and her couture!”
    “I don’t want to be an Elsie.”
    “Yes, you do, Jaden.” She ate three olives after sticking her fingers into the holes. “Behind the control freak, overly serious, frazzled, somewhat explosive Mary Poppins exterior, you have a thriving witch itching to cast a few spells.”
    “Elsie is not a witch. She’s a temptress. She’s a slink.”
    “A slink?”
    “Yes, she’s a slink. She slinks around morals and values because she has none. She preys on men, and if she wants them, even if they’re attached to another female, she pounces.”
    “Ah. But only if they are handsome and/or wealthy, dear daughter. Elsie is particular about who she hops into bed with. And I am, too. I didn’t want to be on the set, in bed, with an ugly fart. I told the director that, too. Rich, don’t put me in bed with an ugly fart. Don’t put me in bed with a man who has a penis in his head. Don’t put me in bed with a man who will try to touch me under the covers or he will lose a ball and you’ll be sued. Keep it clean, Rich, I told him, keep it clean.”
    I laughed. For all the seductiveness in her character, my mother is the most moral person I have ever met. She has a hard moral line about motherhood, family, honesty, kindness, and friendship, and she sticks to it.
    “Did you know that I’m going to get stuck in an elevator next season, the electricity off, the elevator hanging by a tiny wire next season? You know I have claustrophobia. I think I’ll do that scene after shots of whiskey.”
    “You can be a slightly inebriated Elsie then.”
    “Sounds much more relaxing than being sober in an elevator.” She tapped her manicured nails together. “Speaking of that, I want to talk to you about your love life.”
    “I don’t. Please remember that you are my mother.” I could almost taste the molasses cookies.
    “That’s why we’re discussing this. Socially proper mothers address barren, dull love lives with their children to get them zinging again.” She rolled rather heavily made up eyes at me, her auburn bangs fringed to the tops of her eyebrows. “Surely you’ve heard of a love life?”
    “I’ve heard of it and what is a socially proper mother?” I pulled my curls up into a ponytail, the crystals that Tate gave me hanging to my shoulder.
    “It’s me, and you need one,” she drawled.
    “Need what?”
    “Need a love life.”
    I thought of Dr. Ethan Robbins, the only person I could have a love life with.
    My eyes misted over.
    My mother shook my shoulders. “You have to snatch the stethoscope off his neck, rip open his white coat, yank down those pants of his, and roll him onto an operating table! Do it, Jaden, or your own vagina might fall out from lack of use. The same thing that will happen to the winner of the next Emmy!”
    Argh.
    I do not want my vagina to fall out from lack of use, but the only man I want near it is Ethan.
    To tell the truth, I long for moments of quiet. I crave the peace of my greenhouse so I can think amidst my herbs, teacup in hand, all by myself, and dive into a soft heaven of lusty daydreaming.
    I have full daydreams of how life would be lived if I was married to Ethan. I envision passionate dating, and a few blow-up fights that result in a deeper relationship with him proclaiming his undying love for me. I envision the most mind-blowing sex on a regular basis because I cannot help myself and spend hours wondering what he would think of me naked. I am not thin, and I have, as one boyfriend told me years ago before taking off for a “short vacation” to Spain that lasted three years, “an incredible boob rack and hips that will bear a dozen children with no problem.”
    Basically: I curve. Heavy on the boobs, not small hips.
    And the dozen kids?
    With Ethan, that appeals.
    He is six foot four. He has a friendly smile, a gravelly, calm voice, and a