Nolan
“The wreath on the door looks great, Mom,” I said as I propped my phone against the windowsill so she could still see me. Through the window, I saw Gretchen coaxing Pearl to come inside from the snow. “Like magazine great.”
“It’s not my best,” Mom said with a sigh. “I ran out of floral wire halfway through.”
“I like that it’s asymmetrical,” I told her as I unspooled a length of thread. In front of me was the brocade dressing gown the duke would be wearing tomorrow when he and Felicity got sucked back into the present day. I’d been wanting to wear a dressing gown since I saw Shakespeare in the Park legend Bruce Roach rocking one forThe Winter’s Tale, but that was before I’d met Luca. Before I’d known that in order to wear adressing gown, I’d have to rehem the whole thing and restitch the belt loops by hand so it would fit me.
At least Luca had relented and let me use his sewing machine for the hem.
“And I’ve seen asymmetrical wreaths all over Instagram and stuff,” I assured her. “You’re very hip with the wreath times for an old lady.”
She huffed a small laugh. It was a little flat, but she still sounded miles and miles better than she had on Sunday night. “I try. Now show me this dressing gown again. Is your needle thick enough for that shit?”
My mom was like a foulmouthed Martha Stewart. She’d been the one to teach me how to sew when I was in middle school, since all our costumes came straight from the high school’s theater program trash can. She’d also been the one to teach me how to paint, how to transform random thrift store finds into incredibly specific props, how to garden, how to cook, how to do hundreds and thousands of tiny, amazing things that made the world a sweeter and more interesting place.
She was also the mom who brought everyone pizza and pop during long nights in the theater, who carpooled for all the kids whose parents couldn’t pick them up from rehearsals, who saved all my show programs as keepsakes and helped me wash stick glue out of my eyebrows after a long night in special-effects makeup. And when I went to her one day with a printed-out casting call for a boy band reality show in L.A. and told her that Kallum and I were going to do it, she was the one who convinced Kallum’s overprotective mom to let him go, who drove us to California, and who made sure we hadplenty of Gatorade and PowerBars during the sixteen-hour-long audition days.
I held up the dressing gown to the phone camera, and she leaned in, squinting at the brocade.
“And there’s no way you can coax the costume designer to do this for you?” she asked, giving the fabric a critical look.
“He’s at a strip club right now,” I groused as I threaded the needle.
“And you’re not with him at this strip club?”
“Mom!” I said. “I’ve cleaned up my act! I don’t do that anymore!”
She gave me a skeptical look.
“I’m serious,” I promised her. “I’ve been a total saint, and there’s even someone I like here and everything.”
It was maybe a mistake to tell this to April Kowalczk, because her face immediately turned into a Nosy Mom face. “Ooh, someone youlike, hmm?”
“Mom.”
“What? I can’t want my son to stop sneaking boys and girls up to his room like he’s still a teenager? I can’t want you to settle down with someone nice?”
I ducked my head over the dressing gown so she couldn’t see me chew on my lip. Even though Bee was sexy beyond belief and also witty and silly and sharp in real life, I also knew that most people wouldn’t consider a porn starsomeone nice. Mom probably would... but Steph wouldn’t.
Neither would the producers of a singing competition show.
“You know,” Mom said, and I heard something careful inher voice. “If youdomeet someone, I want you to know that it would be okay if you moved out.”
I looked up at the screen, trying to read her face. “Mom...”
She looked away from me, and I could see the shine of tears in her eyes, sudden as a spring rain.
“Mom,” I said again, softly. “I’m happy at home, I promise. And who knows? If I get more stuff after this movie, I’ll be traveling a lot anyway, and it wouldn’t make any sense to move out.”
I didn’t say the real reason I lived with them, which was that Mom and Maddie needed all the money I made at my crappy theater job. Mom barely got by on her Social Security and the flimsy pension Dad left behind.
I also didn’t say theotherreal reason I lived at home, which was that Mom needed me there. Not always, and not even very often. But when she did need me, I wanted to be close by.
A tear slipped free and she quickly wiped it away. “Okay,” she said, in a voice that indicated she wanted to change the subject. “Well. If you want to. Just know that you can. I’ll be okay. Even after Maddie goes to college, I’ll have Barb.” She gave me a thin smile. “And Snapple.”
“Snapple is better than any son,” I agreed, turning back to the brocade draped over my lap before I asked my next question. “How are the new dosages treating you?”
“Fine,” she said quietly. “I’m feeling better than I was on Sunday.”
