Free And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky

past the velvet rope of my immune system. School was school. I wasn’t doing so hot in math and biology, but was sailing through honors English as usual.
    The mumps are
hilarious
. For real. One minute I felt fine, a little giddy and hot to the touch, but not achy or nauseous or in any way bad. I looked good, cheeks flushed like Heidi, as if I’d been foraging for mushrooms in the Alps. But by ten thirty, I started to feel a little weird. Then dizzy. I was in a fantastic mood. Happy for a change, laughing and giggling as I asked the school nurse if I could call home. They didn’tbelieve that I was sick, but let me use the phone anyway. Good grades do that to a person, make them invincible to school personnel.
    As I sat on the couch in the health office waiting for Mom, my neck started to feel tight. It was getting hard to swallow. I lay my head back and tee-heed at the ridiculousness of the nurse phoning in an order for paper cups and memo pads, the Garfield on her JUST HANG IN THERE poster leering at me like a bulge-eyed kidney patient awaiting dialysis.
    When Mom showed up an hour later (it’s hard to just up and leave the D&D during the lunch rush), she took one look at me and started to laugh. She was practically rolling on the floor guffawing and holding her stomach as she led me to the car.
    My mom. She’s great, but she’s also pretty into her own “trajectory.” She has this elaborate theory about her place in the universe and ways to take care of her own “life’s purpose.” She’s always downloading guided meditations for things like “Clearing Blockages” and “Transcending Your Ego” and “Accelerating Your Evolution.” Right after my parents started counseling, I was always catching her mid-Zen, her iPod nano clipped to her shirt collar—earbuds in, eyes half-open, all zoned-out to some guru like she was stoned.
    I listened to one of them once. A woman with a smoothjazz DJ voice encouraged me to “open to receive,” and to “let the light of your soul radiate light up to the light,” all with this New Age music box tinkling in the background.
    Now, if we lived in California or if my mom had ever once in her life worn Birkenstocks, this would have made more sense. But my mom meditating was like the Dalai Lama mugging old ladies as they got off the El. It didn’t quite add up. She was all punk rock, once. She used to be edgier—meaning her edges were sharper, her sense of humor more cynical. Then she’d just seemed preoccupied and nervous. At least the meditating seemed to calm her down. She told me she was putting the “om in ‘mom.’” Isn’t she clever?
    It felt good to see her laugh that mumps day. If it had been anyone else, I would have been annoyed as hell. But it was my mom. And for some reason—a lot of reasons, I guess—it’s really hard for me to get mad and stay mad at her.
    Anyway, I think if I’d felt awful, I would have been outraged at her totally un-motherly behavior, but Mom is as charismatic as Jesus, and I was laughing too, just because she was laughing. When we got to the car, she said, “Honey, have you looked at yourself?”
    So I looked in the rearview mirror and—like Esther Greenwood seeing her reflection for the first time after her suicide attempt—I didn’t recognize myself. I looked like achipmunk storing a winter’s worth of
nuts
in my
cheeks
. My head formed a perfect
triangle
. I looked
inhuman
.
    She said, “I think you have the mum—mum—” She could hardly say it without keeling over with hilarity. “Mumps!” Ha, ha, hahahahahaha.
    That was on a Tuesday. I watched TV. Ads for Taco Bell made my mouth water, painfully, enticing my salivary glands to burn through the inflammation. I drank fluids. I rested. Nic brought by my homework. I fought the low fever and was back in school by Monday.