“I don’t know. She’s your mother.”
“Don’t remind me. I’m so mortified. I can’t believe she’s doing this.”
“What do we do?” he asked. Since when had he picked up my habit of nail biting? “Do you think we should tell the truth?”
“And give her the satisfaction? I don’t think so.”
“Grace, she knows. There’s no way to lie our way out of this.”
My mother summoned us from the Denny’s front stoop. “Now!”
Both Rory and I jumped, exiting the vehicle in unison.
I turned to him. “Well, it was nice knowing you.”
“If we don’t survive,” he said, “it’s been fun. You’re a bad-ass chick.”
* * *
My mother had already disappearedinto the restaurant and was seated when Rory and I entered, him dragging several steps behind. It was in that moment that I made the decision. Rory was right. There was no way to lie our way out of this. The only thing we could do now was own it.
To the horror of our audience of one glaring at us from the booth, I grabbed my guy’s face and grafted a defiant open-mouthed kiss, with tongue, onto his tasty lips.
* * *
My mother didn’t speakto either one of us until after the waitress had come to take our order. Rory and I sat side by side on our bench, my mother on the other. A medieval interrogation.
“How long has this been going on?” she asked.
“I met him seven months ago.”
“Seven months?” She looked between the two of us. “You’ve been lying to me forseven months?”
“Mrs. M…”
“You!” Mom waved a finger at Rory. “I don’t want to hear from you right now.”
And so, I went into the whole story of how we’d met on the street and how he had given me the idea for the class and how I’d only found out she was training him last week. She listened intently, only occasionally butting in to ask a question here or there.
“Okay, now you,” she said to Rory. “What are your intentions toward my daughter?”
“I…uh…” He looked my way and then back at her. “I really like your daughter, and my intentions would be, you know, to keep getting to know her.”
“Me too,” I agreed. “I was going to ask him if he would go to the homecoming dance with me. Rory, what do you say? You wanna be my date?”
Mom’s eyes fluttered as she looked away, irritated. I’d just hijacked the conversation for my own selfish gain, but it was Homecoming, and I really wanted to go.
“Well, I, um… I’m not much of a dancer.”
“We don’t have to dance. We can just hang out. It would mean so much.”
Rory’s eyes narrowed in on me, knowing full well what I was doing. I smiled innocently back. His head twisted between my mother and me, looking for an out that wasn’t in his future.
Without an ounce of enthusiasm, he said, “Um, sure.”
“Yes!” I lit up, almost bouncing up and down in my seat before sealing his promposal, such as it was, with a kiss.
My mother pursed her lips, clearly not appreciating the direction this conversation was going. She sucked in a deep breath and went for the kill. “It’s clear the two of you are having sex.”
