Free Other Plans by Constance C. Greene

she’s blossomed, turned into a beauty.”
    â€œMa, you’re not pulling that stuff on me twice,” he said. “Anyway, I’m scared of girls who are captains of their lacrosse teams. They tend to have big muscles and lots of libido.” He wasn’t entirely sure what libido meant, but he knew he was on the right track.
    â€œYou’re too much, John.” One thing was, he could always make her smile.
    Behind her back, he practiced a few karate chops, slicing his hand through the air close to her ear, missing her by a hair’s breadth. Sometimes he had thoughts of decking his mother and father, tying them up, using nothing but Boy Scout knots, and locking them in a closet until they promised to mend their ways, knuckle under to his demands. He planned, if this fantasy ever came to pass, to release his mother first and hang on to his father until the old man called out in a voice weak from lack of nourishment, “Mercy, mercy, son.”
    She felt the air stir near her head and half turned, tucked her hair behind her ears nervously, wondering where the draft had come from. Once, when he’d been practicing his karate, he’d connected and knocked her to the kitchen floor. Lucky his father wasn’t around for that one.
    â€œGrace asked me if I thought you’d be interested in taking her niece to the movies. I said I’d ask you. Grace said you were the only boy she knew about the right age. She’s always liked you, John.”
    It struck him there were far too many occasions recently when “bullshit” seemed to be the only thing he could think of saying.
    â€œShe doesn’t even know me, Ma,” he said stiffly. Grace Lerner was, in his eye, a slick-haired, fast-talking, know-it-all lady who never gave him the time of day if she could help it.
    His mother banged a few pots and pans around. “Of course, I’d pay,” she said, steaming full speed ahead. “I’d even spring for a bag of popcorn.”
    â€œThere ain’t that much popcorn in the world, Ma.”
    â€œOkay for you. If you don’t want to, you don’t.” She brushed back a strand of hair. She was giving up too easily. Watch it. “I only hope,” she continued, looking at her watch, “that you never ask a favor of me. That’s all I hope.” She tossed a sponge in the sink. “Better see if Dad’s through talking to Grandy. Ten minutes are up.”
    â€œWhat is this? What the heck. Are we running some kind of a space shot here? All right, men, synchronize your watches. Ten, nine, eight, lift-off. What the heck.”
    Dragging his feet, he went through the hall and stood outside his father’s study, heard him say, “Yes, John’s fine. Leslie too.… Well, you know she always does. We expect her home next week on vacation. Ceil sent her love. How’s Helen?… Hope to see the whole gang again soon. Yes, well, give them all my love. Maybe next time I’ll bring Ceil out. Nice to talk to you, Dad. Take care of yourself.… All right. You too.”
    Who writes his dialogue? he wondered. The old man really knew how to toss the old bon mots around. He would’ve liked to speak to Grandy, but his father had hung up. He cleared his throat to let him know he was there. But his father stood looking down at the telephone, his shoulders slumped and narrow in his neat gray suit, and didn’t seem to hear.
    He cleared his throat a second time, and his father shook himself, like a dog coming out of water, and looked around.
    â€œOh, John,” he said, as if not quite sure who John was, what he was doing here. “Sit down, will you?”
    He sat. “How’s Grandy?” he said. “Is he coming to see us?” What he wanted to do was to hitchhike across country, visit his grandfather, maybe go on up to Washington State, Oregon, see something of the country. But they’d never let him. No sense in