All three women leaned in like they wanted to know.
I, on the other hand,did not.
“A woman has needs,” Savannah concurred to my horror.
“She certainly does,” Jen agreed.
Star hummed. “And Paddy takes direction well.”
I stared at them, aghast, realizing they wanted my mother, my actual mother, to discuss her fucking sex life!
In front of me!
“He—”
When Kat yelled, “MOM! DAD!” relief hit me as Ma’s head whipped over to the door, and I knew the distraction would sustain this conversation until I left the goddamn room.
“I’ll deal with whatever’s happening,” I said quickly, jumping to my feet, dumping the ball of yarn on the floor in my haste to run into the hall as my dogs raced alongside me. “Where are you, Kat?”
“Kitchen!”
Of course, I soon found that was a lie.
“Kitchen? You meant war zone, right?” I gaped at the state of it. I didn’t know what was more heinous—the conversation going down in my living room or FlourNam. “Is that flour on the ceiling? When did you even do that? I didn’t know you were home!”
“We have to bring Christmas cookies into school tomorrow.”
When Ren and Stimpy hissed at my dogs, I picked them both up and plunked them in their bed with the order, “Stay.” Ignoring their whining, I wagged a finger and they settled down with a huff. The cats curled into balls on the table. With a battle momentarily appeased, I directed at Kat, “You do know we could have bought Christmas cookies from Aunt Aoife’s bakery?”
“You’re right.” She whistled under her breath then flicked looks between the ceiling and the mess on the counter. “Butthat’d be lying, and Mrs. Bosko said we had to make them at home from scratch.”
I never knew whether to be happy or not that Star, with all her espionage skills, had somehow passed on the need to always be honest to our daughter. Now, she could be sly. But invariably, a thread of truth could be found in whatever she said.
“Aunt Aoife could have prepared the dough on Sunday, and then we could have put them in the oven here at home. What have we told you about technicalities?”
She tapped a finger against her cheek. “That they equal victory?”
“Precisely.” I added, “And that they’re not a lie.” Her biggest issue.
Her gaze dropped to the counter. “But what if I wanted to bake cookies with you?”
“Me or your mom?”
“Either.” She hitched a shoulder. “Both. You.”
I pointed to myself. “Me? You sure?”
Kat ducked her head. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.”
“No, of course I do. I’m just not very good at from-scratch baking. Remember last year when Benji and I made brigadeiros?” I kept my tone light and teasing, sensing that there was something going on here. Her snicker-snort told me she remembered the chocolate sprinkle disaster. “Aoife’s the go-to person for cookies.”
She shrugged. “It’s fine if they suck. I don’t like Mrs. Bosko anyway.”
I chuckled because that was such a “Star” thing to say.
Amused, I situated myself at the counter to wash my hands and grimaced when I saw how much flour dusted everything from this angle.
“Wow,” I muttered, eyes on the hazy spotlights as I grabbed the kitchen towel and dried my hands off. “You made a real mess. I’m almost impressed.”
