Free Days That End in Y by Vikki VanSickle Page B

married, Annie.”
    Mom shows off her ring. “Guilty as charged.”
    Tina claps and bounces a little before wrapping my mom in yet another hug. Maybe constant hugging is something that friends do when they get older. Although when I try to picture Benji and me falling all over each other, it doesn’t stick. Mattie, of course, is already an experienced hugger.
    “Congratulations! I want to hear everything!” Tina shrugs off her purse and blazer and sinks into a recliner.
    Normally I’d find myself a magazine to read, but it occursto me that since Tina knew Mom in high school, she must have also known Bill. I need to find a way to bring him up in the conversation.
    “Clarissa, can you get Tina a drink?”
    Shoot! The one time I want to stick around and eavesdrop and my mother is sending me out of the room.
    “You don’t want to miss out on Clarissa’s iced lemon-tea,” Mom says. “She makes it herself. Her secret ingredient is mint.”
    “How can I say no to that?” Tina says with a wink.
    I run up the stairs two at a time, while Mom fluffs out Tina’s hair to assess the job ahead of her. I’m in such a rush to get back downstairs that I miss the glass while I’m pouring. Lemon-tea sloshes down the side and onto the counter. I don’t have time for this! I can’t miss any of their conversation. What if they’re going to reminisce about the Good Old Days? I need to be there for every little detail.
    I am careful on the way back down, having already lost time wiping up my first spill.
    “Here you are; I hope you like it. I can add more lemonade or mint if you want,” I say, putting on my most professional and helpful daughter face.
    Tina takes a delicate sip. “This is delicious!” she says, smiling at me. “Clarissa, you’re a girl of many talents!”
    “Thanks,” I say, as I sit down and get comfortable.
    “Now, Annie, tell me about this man of yours.”
    “What do you want to know?” Mom says demurely. “His name is Doug Armstrong, and he owns a fitness centre here in town. We met almost a year ago, when I started training at the gym. Then we started dating a few months back, and things just went from there.”
    “Look at you — you’re positively glowing!” Tina says.Then to me, “Isn’t your mother beautiful?”
    “She is,” I say. “The most beautiful woman in town.”
    Mom raises her eyebrows at me, and I decide to tone down the perfect daughter routine. I may be laying it on a bit thick.
    Tina leans in, all conspiratorial. “What do you think of Doug, Clarissa? Is he good enough for our girl?”
    “He’s great! Really friendly. And tall. And nice to dogs …” I am struggling with things to come up with, but Tina seems to think this is enough.
    “Dog lovers are good people,” she says. “When’s the wedding?”
    “Two weeks, if you can believe it. We’re just having a small party in the backyard with a few friends.”
    “Sounds perfect,” Tina says.
    “So what’s new with you? How’s work?”
    Tina starts talking about her son and her job as a speech therapist, and I zone out for a little bit, trying to come up with things to say to direct the conversation toward high school.
    I have a pen and paper ready, so when they start talking, I can jot down names and anything else worth investigating later. As it turns out, I don’t have to say anything, because eventually Tina launches into it all on her own.
    “Have you seen any of the old gang lately? TJ? Alison? Stookey?”
    Mom shakes her head. “Not really. I lost touch with a lot of people once Bill and I called things off. Stookey wouldn’t look me in the eye, and Tyler Kellerman never spoke to me again.”
    I can’t believe my luck. Mom never talks about Bill so candidly. At least not in front of me. My heart is beating so hard, I can feel it throbbing in my fingers. I can barely holdthe pen as I write down
Stookey
and
Tyler Kellerman
.
    “Those guys were always tight,” Tina says. “And you know what Alison