real pointed, “I mostly wasn’t talking to Big.”
Liza laughed outright at that. “I’m the only one looking forward to this, and you want me to sit it out? Fat chance.” She was getting used to this new tone Mosey took with her now. A few months ago, Liza had left her little girl to go on an overnight druid campout, and she’d come home to a ful -
fledged teenager who eye-rol ed and flounced and sighed at everything her mother did.
I said to Liza, “Durn right you’re going. The first half of Mosey’s tuition is due this week if we want to hold her place. Mrs. Doats has left me four messages saying you have not returned her cal s.” I wasn’t about to shel out almost a third of my yearly salary so that Mosey’s civics teacher could tel her who was going to hel (Democrats, loose girls, and most medical professionals) and those who weren’t (Baptists). “Can you write her a check tonight?” I pressed. Last year Liza had paid every scrap up front, out of her “savings,” an animal I would have thought was off playing cards with Pegasus when the ark fil ed up.
“Tel her I got it covered,” Liza said, unconcerned. I felt the little row of suspicion hairs that grow on the back of my neck rising up even higher, because having it covered wasn’t the same thing as saying plain she had the money.
I turned in to the Calvary lot and parked, and al I said was, “Mm-hmm. After you write the check, take Mosey around to the booths and take a look at next year’s extracurriculars.”
“Oh, my God,” said Mosey and Liza, same time, same exasperated inflection.
“I’m sorry, but if the child is going to stay at Cal, she needs to have more friends than the Evil Fetus.”
“She’s staying at Cal, al right,” Liza said, firm, at the same moment Mosey said, “His name is Roger .”
“His name is Raymond,” I told her, and Mosey sat up straight so I could get a good view of her rol ing eyes in my rearview.
Liza was already slipping out of the car and speeding away ahead of us across the parking lot, getting the jump on me, no doubt running straight into man trouble. Or money trouble. Or both. I tilted my seat back open so Mosey could scramble out, and she stomped along slowly right in my way with her arms crossed and her shoulders in an angry hunch. Liza had disappeared inside before I could hustle our mud-foot kid even halfway across the lot.
Inside, the gym looked as though a discount-vacation brochure had thrown up al over the auditorium. Inflatable pink-and-green plastic palm trees hung down from the ceiling, and a long sheet of butcher paper with a wobbly ocean view painted on it lined the wal behind the stage. Way too many of those seagul s that look like M’s had been drawn on, as if it were the backdrop for the high-school musical version of that Hitchcock film. Parents and kids who had come on time were standing in chatty bunches, eating store-bought cookies and drinking what looked like foamy white slushies.
I went with Mosey to get a cookie and said hey to a couple of her teachers, al the while scanning the huge room trying to find Liza and see who she’d been so al -fired eager to talk to. I eventual y spotted her up on the stage. She was faced forward, scanning the crowd herself, side by awkward side with Claire Richardson, of al people. They each held a paper cup ful of those foamy white drinks, and Claire was facing the crowd as wel , unwil ing to waste her minty-fresh moneyed breath on smal talk with my daughter. Liza sucked at her straw and ignored Claire right back.
I saw Mrs. Doats wending her way toward us through the crowd at the snack table, so I got a good hold on Mosey’s arm and steered her the other way. We fetched up by some decorated folding tables where kids were recruiting for chorus and soccer and track and chess. I waved a hand at them and told Mosey, “Pick something, and which one is Mr. Lambert?”
She pointed at a stocky, bearded fel ow, and then her expression
Liza laughed outright at that. “I’m the only one looking forward to this, and you want me to sit it out? Fat chance.” She was getting used to this new tone Mosey took with her now. A few months ago, Liza had left her little girl to go on an overnight druid campout, and she’d come home to a ful -
fledged teenager who eye-rol ed and flounced and sighed at everything her mother did.
I said to Liza, “Durn right you’re going. The first half of Mosey’s tuition is due this week if we want to hold her place. Mrs. Doats has left me four messages saying you have not returned her cal s.” I wasn’t about to shel out almost a third of my yearly salary so that Mosey’s civics teacher could tel her who was going to hel (Democrats, loose girls, and most medical professionals) and those who weren’t (Baptists). “Can you write her a check tonight?” I pressed. Last year Liza had paid every scrap up front, out of her “savings,” an animal I would have thought was off playing cards with Pegasus when the ark fil ed up.
“Tel her I got it covered,” Liza said, unconcerned. I felt the little row of suspicion hairs that grow on the back of my neck rising up even higher, because having it covered wasn’t the same thing as saying plain she had the money.
I turned in to the Calvary lot and parked, and al I said was, “Mm-hmm. After you write the check, take Mosey around to the booths and take a look at next year’s extracurriculars.”
“Oh, my God,” said Mosey and Liza, same time, same exasperated inflection.
“I’m sorry, but if the child is going to stay at Cal, she needs to have more friends than the Evil Fetus.”
“She’s staying at Cal, al right,” Liza said, firm, at the same moment Mosey said, “His name is Roger .”
“His name is Raymond,” I told her, and Mosey sat up straight so I could get a good view of her rol ing eyes in my rearview.
Liza was already slipping out of the car and speeding away ahead of us across the parking lot, getting the jump on me, no doubt running straight into man trouble. Or money trouble. Or both. I tilted my seat back open so Mosey could scramble out, and she stomped along slowly right in my way with her arms crossed and her shoulders in an angry hunch. Liza had disappeared inside before I could hustle our mud-foot kid even halfway across the lot.
Inside, the gym looked as though a discount-vacation brochure had thrown up al over the auditorium. Inflatable pink-and-green plastic palm trees hung down from the ceiling, and a long sheet of butcher paper with a wobbly ocean view painted on it lined the wal behind the stage. Way too many of those seagul s that look like M’s had been drawn on, as if it were the backdrop for the high-school musical version of that Hitchcock film. Parents and kids who had come on time were standing in chatty bunches, eating store-bought cookies and drinking what looked like foamy white slushies.
I went with Mosey to get a cookie and said hey to a couple of her teachers, al the while scanning the huge room trying to find Liza and see who she’d been so al -fired eager to talk to. I eventual y spotted her up on the stage. She was faced forward, scanning the crowd herself, side by awkward side with Claire Richardson, of al people. They each held a paper cup ful of those foamy white drinks, and Claire was facing the crowd as wel , unwil ing to waste her minty-fresh moneyed breath on smal talk with my daughter. Liza sucked at her straw and ignored Claire right back.
I saw Mrs. Doats wending her way toward us through the crowd at the snack table, so I got a good hold on Mosey’s arm and steered her the other way. We fetched up by some decorated folding tables where kids were recruiting for chorus and soccer and track and chess. I waved a hand at them and told Mosey, “Pick something, and which one is Mr. Lambert?”
She pointed at a stocky, bearded fel ow, and then her expression
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