CHAPTER 1
“THE HOUSE NEXT DOORfinally sold!”
My mother was in a tizzy. No, tizzy was her normal state. She was in a state most mothers could achieve only by some combination of a Nordstrom liquidation sale and cocaine.
Head pounding, I squinted at my phone. My eyes were too bleary to make out the time, but I was pretty sure it started with a seven. Only my mother would think it appropriate to call at this hour on New Year’s Day. Answering the phone: my first mistake of the new year. I blamed my hangover. A muffled groan of protest emanated from the man in my bed. And that man’s name was…
It would come back to me.
I turned down my phone’s volume and slipped quietly out of bed, planting my feet in my leopard-print slippers.
“Mom,” I whispered as I tiptoed to the bathroom. “It’s only seven—” But she was barreling on. Mom needed no back-and-forth in conversation; she simply needed a listener with a pulse.
“—thought surely they had priced it too high, but it was finally bought for three-point-five million dollars! By a young man!”
Good Lord, her voice was shrill. Was it normal to be so investedin neighborhood gossip? Somehow I thought not. And yet “normal” had never been a guiding factor in my mother’s behavior.
I put the phone on the counter, not bothering to put her on speakerphone as I peed, flushed, and brushed my teeth. I splashed water on my face and rubbed at the black makeup smudged under my eyes. For half a second I considered putting on fresh makeup so I’d look a little more like I had last night when I’d brought home… what’s-his-name.I really thought it would come back to me.But, on the whole, I couldn’t be bothered.
Mom was still in full swing when I picked up the phone again.
“Mom, I have to go,” I interrupted. “Sorry, but I was in the middle of something, and I—”
“Come over; we need to discuss this.”
“Discuss… what?”
“The house! Next door!”
“You already told me. It sold.” I paused, then added, “Yay?”
“There’s more,” she whispered, in what was clearly meant to be a compelling and mysterious voice.
“Um…” I had been looking forward to a day of rest. You know, a day when I ordered Mexican food, watched trash TV, and only left my couch for bathroom breaks.
“I’ll make sandwiches.”
“Done.”So what?As an adult, I’d learned never to say no to food prepared by somebody other than myself.
After hanging up, I crawled back into bed next to the snoring hottie and checked the group chat. All was quiet. Amy, Eva, and Sumira were probably still asleep like normal people with normal mothers. We’d gone hard at our college friend Davis’s party the night before. But hey, it was the last New Year of our twenties. We were turning thirty this year. We deserved to go big.
There was no chance of me falling back asleep now, so I openedmy Notes app to write some New Year’s resolutions. Ten minutes later, I read through my list:
• Smoke one bowl a day or less.
• Ditto coffee: one cup a day.
• Dress for my age. Show less cleavage and midriff. Not saying I need to don linen slacks and sweater sets—what is a sweater set?—but I can class it up a little.
• Learn what a sweater set is.
• Try new forms of exercise.
• Be nicer to Mom.
• Be nicer to the nerds at work.
• Finally try Jdate. (Break it to Mom gently so she doesn’t expire of happiness on the spot.)
