“Just up and down the driveway?”
“Mm hmm,” she says, cheerily, as if this is something people do.
“Okay. How come you don’t go to the park?”
“Because it’s spring. The hoodlums come out.”
“The hoodlums?” I ask.
“Yes. There is a band of them in my neighborhood. They accost people.”
“Is that right?”
“They ride their bicycles in packs—big packs, Gracie. One time, I counted eleven of them.”
“And how do they accost people?”
“They take up the walkway, and you have to move into the grass. They just have no regard for anyone.”
“So, you can never go to the park again?”
“I can go back in the summer. That’s when they go to the pool instead. The walkways are safe beginning in late June.”
“Okay. Well, this has been nice, Mom. I’m gonna get going.”
“But wait! You didn’t tell me aboutyourweek.”
“Oh. Yup. Everything’s fine here. No complaints.”
“Anything exciting happen in your professional life?”
My mother loves to brag to her friends that I’m an author, but she never goes any deeper than that. I have no doubt in my mind that she’s completely embarrassed by what I write. (In fact, I’ve heard her lie and say that I write children’s books.) My father refuses to speak about it. I’m pretty sure he’s still waiting for me to get a real job. He quantifies a “real job” as anything with health insurance.
Starbucks, here I come.
Her question lures me like bait. I haven’t told anyone—other than Colin—about the deal that’s in the works, and even though my mom’s a little bit cuckoo, she’s still mymom.I feel sort of like she should get first dibs on the news. But I know it’s a fine line I’ll be walking if I tell her anything remotely interesting, and then she won’t let it go for the next five phone calls, minimum.
This is a realSophie’s Choice. I decide to do the honorable thing and tell her the truth.
“Well, there is one sort of cool thing happening.”
“Oh? Tell me. Or like they say on the TV, ‘Dish, girl.’”
“Nope. Please, never say that again.”
She laughs. “Okay. Go ahead.”
“It looks like I might have gotten some serious interest forReckless Outlaw.”
I hear her clapping. “Yay! You go, girl!”
I shake my head. “Yeah. And the publisher would like to see a second manuscript, to try and bundle it into a two-book deal.”
“Is that right?”
“It’s exciting. I’m excited. There’s just one problem.”
“What?”
