Free Infandous by Elana K. Arnold

of women those either hang like limp pockets or cut across the boobs all funny. But my mom isn’t anybody.
    The dress is also sleeveless with a deep slit up the right side.
    I mean, come on. Right?
    But the thing is, my mother looks … charming in it. And with her long copper hair in loose waves down her back and her amazing lips darkened to red, she is so beautiful. Not ironic or anything.
    My first thought isn’t that she is dressing up for Jordan. Because my mom and I, whenever we go out to celebrate anything, she’s always dressed up. Always. And I used to as well. I’m not really sure when I stopped or why. It has something to do with how uncomfortable I began to feel about people looking at me. It used to be that I was like an extension of my mother. I mean, she was the showstopper. I was just this goofy kid hanging on her arm, wearing a dress in a color that matched hers, but not the main point, you know.
    Then I got older. And still, my mother was the star of every outing, but rather than an accessory, I became more of a sidekick, and people started saying things like, “Watch out! This one’s going to be trouble!” and “She’s going to grow up to be a heartbreaker, same as her mama!”
    And like I said before, I don’t particularly like attention. Not that kind of attention. Plus, all these strangers who seemed to feel that they had the right to comment on us, they had it all wrong. I’d never seen my mother break anyone’s heart. I certainly had no intention of ever doing so. We had between us two whole hearts, and back then, as far as I knew, that was plenty for both of us.
    ***
    Jordan is predictably impressed by my mother’s red dress. He says, “You look nice, Seph,” but without really looking at me. The way he looks at her —the intensity of his desire—almost makes me lose my appetite.
    Almost. The promise of kung pao chicken has a way of rectifying most things.
    ***
    The restaurant is packed, but that doesn’t matter. We’re with Rebecca Golding, and even waiting for a table is good times. The whole place comes alive when we walk in, and it goes from being this disparate collection of strangers to The Rebecca Golding Fan Club.
    We don’t have to wait all that long, and when it’s our turn to be seated, I feel the eyes shifting to watch my mother walk by. There’s a guy with his average wife and average kid who might be sleeping on the couch tonight after the way he eye-fucks my mom; there’s a table of college-age guys, one of whom literally raises his glass in salute when she walks by.
    We slide into the vinyl-upholstered booth in a row: me, my mother, and then Jordan. I wonder if she feels it—the competing pulls for her attention from all of us—the restaurant patrons, the waiter, Jordan, and me, always me. That’s how it is with my mother. Everyone wants a piece of her. Everyone wants her eyes on their face.
    Mom has turned her body not away from me exactly but undeniably toward Jordan. And they are drinking together, some kind of Asian beer with Chinese letters on the sweating paper labels.
    I’m not drinking, of course, because even though Jordan is technically more of my generation than hers, he falls on the other side of the invisible line of twenty-one, so he and she are the pair and I am the kid at the table.
    We’ve placed our orders and the egg rolls have come and soon the main course will arrive. I try not to feel like I’m sitting at the wrong table, but it’s hard to be totally comfortable when she and Jordan are laughing about some running joke from the reggae concert and I have no clue what they’re talking about.
    My mom finally notices that it’s been a while since I’ve said anything right around the time my kung pao gets to the table. She smiles at me totally, sincerely, and I know she doesn’t mean to exclude me. Jordan doesn’t, either—he’s a nice enough guy—but let’s face it, I don’t belong at this table. There are ensemble scenes, and