Free The French Revolution by Matt Stewart Page B

the boss. Things must remain the way they are. No changes whatsoever. That means you may not replace my classic furniture, or put your hideous modern music on the phonograph, or, heaven forbid, exchange my tasteful stores of clothing with the whoring outfits I see on the streets.”
    Ezzie nodded frantically, hair snakes snipping free from her bun.
    “My word is final. If I ask you something, I expect it to be done right away. Not after you are done with your pizza or your gallon of ice cream or whatever it may be. Immediately.”
    Yes , said Esmerelda’s shaking eyes, I’ll carry you on my back over continents and across solar systems if that’s what it takes .
    Fanny extracted a ream of paper from her own massive wool bag and thumped it on the table. “I anticipated that you might want to move back in, and took the liberty of calling my attorney, to have my conditions written out.”
    The stack ran fifty pages deep, single spaced, a hard block of information and clauses. Esmerelda flipped through it, scanning first sentences and whistling appreciatively. Whereunto. Whereas. Be it agreed. Whatever. She dipped into her bag and groped for a writing implement.

    Fanny swatted her elbows. “Read it first! I thought I drilled some sense into that noggin of yours.”
    “I’m moving in, not signing away my life. Ain’t like I’m buying a house.”
    “Oh yes you are, dear.” Fanny slipped a butter knife into the sheaf of paper and terraced off the top third. “That is part of the contract, section five. If you choose to relocate yourself and your offspring into my home, you must buy a house to leave. Not just any house either—a house in the city of San Francisco, with a bedroom for each inhabitant, and within three hundred feet of a park. A sound investment. I will not have you squander your money again.”
    Outside, a black Town Car glided into the parking lot, piping smooth jazz at a firm volume.
    “A house? I work at a copy shop, Ma. Not really in the house-buying income bracket.”
    “It is high time for you to own something. This day-to-day nonsense, this absurd employment making photocopies, well, you are walking in place. You need a career, not a job. It is time to buy into something, to set goals and achieve them. The baking was a start, but you let yourself be pulled astray. Get it together, dear. It will make you a stronger, more focused woman. To achieve and accomplish, these are the traits missing from your constitution. Please, moving back in with your mother? It is the life goal of very few people.”
    Esmerelda clenched a smile. So many counterarguments burning: she’d just been promoted to assistant manager, what a lot of people called a career , thank you, even if it wasn’t exactly the gig she’d always dreamed of; raising her kids right was a goal, a darn good one; and anyway, Fanny hadn’t worked a day in her life, just scooted forward on the life insurance and government checks.
    “I am sure that you are thinking about the many ways in which you benefit the world. You have two children, neither of whom appears to be deformed or unhealthy according to the photographs I received. To which I say: welcome to the club,
dear. And what is more, your attitude toward the children appears to be that they are the ropes keeping you tied to the dock. But it is not apparent that you were going to leave the dock in the first place. You require motivation, a destination for your voyage. A house is a practical place to start.”
    Esmerelda placed her hand over her mouth and looked up at the ceiling. She counted the chandeliers, then the crystals in the chandeliers, the cuts in the crystals, the scratches in the cuts, most of this imagined, her eyesight not that good. She haronked into the tablecloth and began gathering her allotment of knives and forks for a direct facial attack.
    Then the door chime jingled, footsteps cantered their way. A crash, a child’s lethargic whine, and finally the appearance of a