Free Prize Problems by Janet Rising Page A

Simon, by default, was The One, I asked where they’d been together.
    â€œNo, no, I’ve given Simon the old heave-ho, as well,” Mom said.
    â€œWhy?” I asked, my brain getting more tangled by the second.
    â€œNose hair,” came the reply. “No, I’m talking about Andy.”
    My mom is so superficial. Honestly, she’s always telling me I have to see beyond what people look like and seek the inner person, find out whether they are kind, or considerate or have hidden qualities, blah, blah, blah (apart from Dad’s girlfriend, Skinny Lynny—she can’t stop thinking up snide comments about her). Then, as soon as one of her boyfriends wears the wrong shoes or she notices a hair sprouting in the wrong place, she dumps them. What chance do I have of having any sort of quality relationship with any future boyfriends with such a bad role model?
    â€œAndy?” I asked faintly. There had been no mention of an Andy before I left. It was only two days ago, for heaven’s sake.
    â€œYup! Andy is a lawyer,” Mom said reverently.
    â€œIs that good?” I asked, bewildered.
    â€œGood? It’s better than good. I’m telling you, Pia, Andy would have come in very handy when your father and I were going through our divorce.”
    Stable, door, bolted—all words which sprang to mind but instead of mentioning them out loud, I asked Mom about shoes, nasal sproutings, and other possible barriers to true love.
    â€œNope, Andy wears very stylish shoes. No nasal hair. No ear hair either. In fact,” she paused, “Andy has no hair at all, head-wise.”
    â€œHe’s bald?”
    â€œYes, but it suits him and, as Carol says…”
    I groaned inwardly. Her friend Carol’s opinion is highly valued by my mom, highly dreaded by me.
    â€œâ€¦bald is very fashionable. Very now.”
    â€œWell as long as you’re having fun,” I said, giving up.
    I hung up and shared my concerns with Bean. She looked at me vacantly, unable to comprehend a parent with such an active social life. “At least your mom doesn’t appear from her studio at eight o’clock at night, after everyone else has cooked their own dinner, and ask what you’d like for lunch,” she said.
    â€œWhy don’t you buy her a watch?” I asked.
    â€œWe did. Several,” Bean replied. “They turned up fused together in a block of Plexiglas, titled Time: Frozen , and exhibited at the local museum. Some mental person actually bought it for a couple of thousand dollars. She uses everything in her sculptures. She stole some of my school pens for some piece she did about education. Honestly, you can’t leave anything lying around.”
    Obviously, when one is artistic, one loses track of time or how some things can be useful. My mom seems to lose track of how many boyfriends she has. Or had. Either way, moms seems prone to carelessness. I just hoped that, in my absence, my mom wouldn’t lose her head over this Andy lawyer person. But I couldn’t worry about that for very long because it was barbecue night, and we were all looking forward to it.

Chapter 9
    Mrs. Reeve was wearing—according to her—a comedy barbecue apron. And she looked pretty ridiculous in it. The figure of a muscle-bound male in swimming trunks with Mrs. Reeve’s head sprouting out of the top wasn’t so much comic as gross, particularly as her two grayish blond braids dangled either side of a hairy male chest.
    â€œGrody!” Amber declared, stuffing shrimp in her mouth and washing them down with Coke as Mrs. Reeve shuffled off to the shed to get some more charcoal.
    â€œHave you spoken to Mom, yet?” Zoe asked her, the ends of her curly blond hair still wet from her swim.
    â€œNot yet,” said Amber, rolling her eyes at me.
    â€œCome ON, Amber, do it now!” Zoe yelled. “You can’t keep putting it off, you have to tell her