Free Going For Broke by Nina Howard Page A

out for Parker to shake.  Victoria had always been relentless with the kids about their “company manners”, and even though they looked like they just walked out of a trailer park, she was gratified that they held steady on the manners front.    Parker shook his hand with a firm grip and looked him in the eye as he answered him.  “Wow, that’s some grip you’ve got there!” Bud said with good cheer.
                  Victoria looked around.  “Where’s mom?” She asked.
                  “Oh, she had to run a few errands.  We didn’t know when you’d get here,” he said.  If that statement had come out of her mother’s mouth it would have sounded like an attack.  From Bud, it was just a fact.  “She should be back any minute.  Let’s get you settled.”  Then he noticed that they didn’t have any bags.  “Boy, you sure travel light!”
                  Victoria just wanted a hot shower and a cold martini.  Couldn’t they get someone else to empty the damn truck?  Bud was being so accommodating, though she was sure that he was halfway to a heart attack if he even carried in a bag of groceries.  “I’m parked around the corner - it can wait.”
                  “Do you guys want to get washed up?” Bud asked diplomatically.  She knew they looked like a train wreck.  Even her pants were wrinkled and there was a splotch of ketchup on her sleeve.   Somewhere along the Indiana Toll Road she should have thought about what she’d look like to her mother when she arrived on her door. 
                    “Give us a minute - we’ll be right back,” she said as she ushered the kids out the door.
                  Victoria opened the back of the truck and started looking though the boxes for something decent to wear.    She didn’t think to pack an overnight bag, which was unlike her.  Every time she took a private jet ride she’d deplane in a different outfit than she boarded in.  They didn’t have a large number of boxes, not one of them was labeled.   Didn’t the movers usually do that?  The kids were tearing through boxes, dragging out every sort of toy or book that they didn’t need.  Finally, they found the box with clothes. 
                  “Take off your pants, honey.  Let’s put on this pretty dress,” Victoria told Posey.
                  “Mommy, I can’t be naked!” She looked at the door open to the street.  “We’re outside.”
                  “Oh, nobody will see you - I’ll hold up this scarf.” Victoria grabbed an Hermes scarf which was almost large enough to cover her entire child.  “Hurry.  Parker, have you found your clothes yet?”
                  Parker had found a handheld game and was engrossed in playing it.  He didn’t respond.
                  “Parker Vernon!” Victoria shrieked.  “Put that thing down and get dressed!  Posey, take off your clothes!”
                  It was just then that a little head popped into the back of the truck.  “Well there you all are!”  It was Barbara.
                  Victoria stopped just long enough to assess the scene that her mother was taking in.  She was in a U-Haul truck, with a half-naked child, another child zoned out playing video games surrounded by almost everything she now owned strewn around the back of the truck.  One hell of a homecoming.
                  “Mom!” It was more of an exclamation.
                  “Bud told me you were parked just around the corner.  I couldn’t miss you,” she said, knocking on the side of the truck.  “No one could.”
                  Victoria gave up.  She was too tired, too emotionally beat up to even try to put on a good face with her mother.  “Hey guys, say hello to your grandmother.”