Free Spin Doctor by Leslie Carroll Page A

voice similar complaints: their personal life suffers while their professional one thrives, but misery having company doesn’t make it any less depressing.
    A tall, ponytailed blonde in the de rigueur black fedora caught my eye. She was holding her much shorter partner so tenderly; and though their dancing wasn’t going to win them any Fred and Ginger (or Ginger and Mary Ann) awards, the two of them looked like they were more than just good friends. Particularly after I saw them kiss. I felt like such a voyeur, but for some reason, they mesmerized me. Perhaps it was because I was certain there was something familiar about the way the shorter woman moved, always listing ever so slightly to port, because her left leg was just a fraction shorter than her right.
    When the couple turned, and her slouchy fedora slipped back on her head, I caught a good look at the blonde’s partner’s face. I knocked over my drink, and practically vaulted the low black granite cocktail table trying to reach them.
    â€œMolly! What the hell are you doing here?!”
    She abruptly stopped dancing and looked just as shocked to see me. “I could ask you the same thing, Mom.”
    I steered her into the corner where we’d have some semblance of privacy and plopped her onto the cushy banquette. Her friend hovered guiltily about two feet away. “Don’t sass me, young lady,” I heard myself say, sounding like my own mother. “Don’t make me list your transgressions in front of your friend. I’m assuming this is the same Lauren you told me you were going to the movies with tonight.”
    Molly started to laugh. In the past few years she’s perfected the teenage snort. Its very tone and delivery mocks mothers. “Yeah, right. Lauren.”
    â€œMolly, first of all—no, second of all—even though you’ve only got four days left until summer vacation, this is a school night. First of all, you’re underage—in a bar—how the hell did they let you in here in the first place? And what the heck is so funny about Lauren? You haven’t fazed me or freaked me out by French kissing with a girl, you know. The piercing on your…you know…was infinitely more outrageous.”
    â€œThen I’m losing my touch.”
    â€œI do, however, want an explanation. And an apology for lying to me. It’s one thing to say you’re going to the movies on a school night. You promised to do your homework first, and I gave you the respect of taking you at your word. But a nightclub? This isn’t acceptable, Molly. And I have a feeling it wouldn’t be acceptable to Lauren’s mother either.”
    â€œLauren,” Molly scoffed again, as though I was an idiot. “We are so lucky it’s so dark in here,” she added, in a tone I can only describe as adolescent self-satisfaction. Are there any other mothers out there whose skin crawls at teenagers’ overuse ofthe word “so”? There’s another affectation that seems designed to annoy parents.
    Molly took me by one hand and her tall blond partner by the other and dragged us all off the dance floor and into the narrow hallway that led to the bathrooms. She finally halted in an alcove housing those cumbersome chrome-plated dinosaurs otherwise known as pay phones where the light was at least bright enough to see the numbered buttons.
    â€œOkay,” I told my daughter, “talk.”
    Acting as though I had greatly incommoded them, Molly turned to her friend with a shrug. “I guess we better come clean,” she said, removing the blonde’s hat.
    Now that her friend’s face was no longer shaded, I wasn’t sure which of Molly’s lies I should be more pissed off about.
    â€œMa, meet Laurence.”
    â€œLaurence.” I let the word sit on my tongue for a couple of moments, tasting it. It took every ounce of my willpower to refrain from reaming out my daughter in front of