“Lord, no. I had a hysterectomy three years ago. Best thing I ever did.”
“Ah, I see.”
Cute how he had a hard time with woman talk.
“I can still come over and talk with her, though. Or maybe act like a translator and talk you through what to get?”
“Yes to both. Please?”
“Be there in a second.” I rolled out of bed. I didn’t want to think about my makeup situation, because I had definitely not bothered to take it off the night before. In this case, Parker would have to take what he could get.
“Where are you going?” Mom asked when I reached the front door.
“Helping Parker.”
“Who?”
“Our neighbor. The one who needed the dress hemmed.”
“Oh,” she said in a way that suggested she still didn’t know who I was talking about. “With what?”
“His daughter got her first period, if you must know.”
“Poor thing,” Mom said. “But this affectsyouhow?”
“He asked for help. He’s kinda clueless on the subject.”
Mom looked over the rim of her glasses. “I know I joked about the rules I once told you, but the most important is not to jump from one man to another. It really is like jumping out of the frying pan right into the fire.”
“Mom! It’s not like that!”
She shrugged. The woman who gave birth to me had the audacity to shrug. “Just be careful.”
I bit back a retort about how her approach obviously wasn’t working and set off for my neighbor’s house.
He met me at the front door. “I’ll go to the store, and you can text me what she wants. That way we can maybe save some time?”
“Sure,” I said. I had not yet had coffee, so I was not the one to be making plans.
“She’s upstairs, locked in the bathroom.”
“Oh, good. Not hysterical at all, I see.”
“I bought her a couple of books,” Parker said. “She told me she’s watched YouTube videos about it.”
As if a YouTube video could really encapsulate the menstrual experience.
“And they had some presentation at the elementary school.”
I snorted. “That presentation serves no purpose other than having all the guys asking the girls if they’ve started their periods yet and then blaming their irritability on PMS.”
“I see.” His tone suggested he’d either forgotten what it was like to be a fifth-grade boy or he’d somehow skipped the “Facts of Life” presentation.
“You can go on. I’ll text you what she needs.”
As I climbed the stairs, I heard his car engine start. I called upstairs, “Cassidy? It’s Vivian from next door.”
“Go away!”
