“You’re sticky, Bee,” I say with a laugh and bop on the oversized white bow around her ponytail. She looks exactly like her father with big brown eyes and dirty-blond hair. I don’t let myself think of Nash often, but at the unexpected times his ghost finds me, it’s hard for me to breathe through the anger and sadness. Hard for me to think straight until I shove the thought away.
She drops her backpack on the old planks of the wood floor.
“Hot out.” She shoves a stack of mail and school papers in my hand. To my mom: “You forgot to get the mail again, Gypsy.”
“Did I?” My mom swats a dismissive hand through the air. “Guess it’s good for you. We all know how much you like to read it before us.”
She and my mom exchange a conspiratory look, but my mom’s not wrong. She used to be religious about greeting the mailman, now I think she likes leaving it for Bennie because she’s been skipping it more and more.
“School good?” I ask her.
“Yep.” Bennie grins. “One more week until summer break.”
“Summer break can wait,” Mom chimes in. “I got a new treasure. A crystal ball.”
Mentally, I flip her off, but Bennie, that backstabber, squeals with delight.
Mom shuffles behind the counter to reveal the purple velvet bag and its contents. Bennie’s face lights up at the sight of it.
I don’t miss the victorious look my mother gives me. The fact that we’re both still alive after so many years working together should be studied for science.
“Did you see this, Mom?” Bennie makes a fish face that’s distorted in the ball’s reflection. “Is it real?”
“Of course it’s real.” My mom looks like this is the most absurd question she’s ever been asked. “It belonged to Jeane Dixon.”
Bennie is somehow even more enamored by this news.
My mom vanishes down an aisle, returning with two scarves she ties into turbans on their heads, pulling her hair back just enough I see the faded scar on her forehead from the night my dad died. He had his heart attack while he was driving them out to dinner, hitting a telephone pole and dying instantly. After being checked from head to toe, my mom walked away with a few follow-up checkups and a single scratch.
“I see ice cream in my future,” Bennie says, waving her hands slowly over the crystal ball. It’s hard not to laugh. “And going to a school where I don’t have to wear this stupid skirt.”
“Hey!” I swat her plaid-fabric-covered bottom. “That skirt costs a lot of money, Bennie Francine.”
She opens one eye to give me a look. No matter how many times I remind her I’m paying a small fortune for her to go to the best school in the area, it’s the skirt it comes down to.
Following Bennie’s lead, my mom closes her eyes and waves her hands around the ball, voice lowering to a whisper. “I see your mom going on an adventure and—wait—is that a smile?”
“Ha. Ha,” I say dryly.
“Oh? And what’s this?” Her hands still but her eyebrows raise above her closed eyes like she’s just made a grand discovery. “She’s going to fall in love.”
Bennie giggles. “Maybe with my dad.”
At this, my mom’s eyes fly open and she and I exchange a wide-eyed look. I’ve done the best I can handling such a delicate topic with Bennie. But this ... this is unexpected. Even my mother is shocked.
“You know that can’t happen, right, Bee?” I ask softly. “You know that, right?”
She shrugs, looking at me like that’s just my opinion. Like the man is not, in fact, dead.
“And I’m marrying Jonathan,” I add.
My mom rolls her eyes. “How could we forget?”
I don’t know what it is about Jonathan—he’s a great man—but for the two years we’ve been together, he’s never been great enough forher. Good news for me: I don’t care what she thinks. He’s the nicest man I’ve ever known and more stable than an old oak. Everything I had in my family growing up, he and I will give to Bennie.
I wiggle my finger donning a large diamond toward my mother and give her a saccharine smile. “With effort, I’m sure.”
She makes a disagreeing sound then winces slightly, giving her temple a two-fingered massage.
