A familiar silver Lexus.
No.
No no no no no.
My stomach dropped straight into my skates.
Mom’s car.
She wasn’t supposed to be home for at least another hour. I’d planned this carefully, practice a little, get my footing, take off the skates before she could see me, and avoid the inevitable interrogation about “unsafe hobbies” and “undignified midlife crises.”
Too late.
Her car door opened, and she stepped out in a perfectly pressed blouse and pearls that gleamed even in the cloudy afternoon light. She froze the second she saw me.
And I froze too, one wheel sliding forward against my will.
“Oh dear God,” she whispered, sounding personally victimized. “Eleanor.”
I swallowed, trying to force my feet into some position that looked less like imminent disaster.
“Hi, Mom,” I said brightly. “You’re early.”
She stared at me like I had sprouted tentacles.
“What,” she said slowly, “are youwearing?”
I looked down at myself — leggings, a T-shirt, elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads the size of dinner plates, and bright blue roller skates.
“I’m . . . practicing.”
“For what?” she demanded, stepping closer. “The circus?”
Wow. Strong start.
I pushed off again, mostly so I didn’t fall in place. “Just skating. For fun.”
“Fun,” she repeated, tasting the word like it was sour. “Eleanor, honey . . . you’re a mother. You’re too old to be doing—” she gestured vaguely at my entire body “—this.”
I clenched my jaw. “I’m meeting someone to skate tomorrow and wanted to be prepared.”
“Someone?”
“Just . . . a friend.”
“One of those Penguin people?” she pressed. “One of those single parents?”
She said the last words likestray cats.
I rolled forward a few inches just to get away from her. “Mom, I’m just skating. This isn’t a moral failing.”
She opened her mouth to argue — And that’s when my wheel hit a pebble.
I lurched forward, arms flailing, pure panic bubbling in my throat as I managed, somehow, through sheer panic and maybe divine intervention, not to crash into the mailbox.
“ELEANOR!”
I straightened, breathless. “I’m fine!”
