Kissing in America by Margo Rabb

love you,” I said. “I’ll pay you back with interest. Unless my mom locks me in my room forever, which will probably happen after I tell her this whole plan.”
    I spent the next twenty-four hours memorizing passages from Women and Economics , by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“The troubles of life as we find them are mainly traceable to the heart or the purse”), which was the subject of my mom’s PhD thesis. Annie helped me put together a spreadsheet about what the $50,000 might mean for my future wealth, success, happiness, and achievement (especially if, according to Annie’s calculations, it accrued interest at an annual 6 percent rate).
    The next night, I practiced what I’d say to my mom as I cooked dinner. I chopped garlic and parsley, and stirred the tomato sauce. The kitchen was my favorite room in our house. When I cooked, I forgot about school and Will and everything for a little while.
    When my dad cooked, he’d hum or whistle and enter this happy sort of trance. Sometimes, what I missed most about him was this secret well of joy he always had, how he made everything fun. Whenever I had a bad day, he’d say, “All is not lost, is it?” He’d make tea (he only liked Tetley, sent from his London friends—he said the kind sold here wasn’t the same) with sugar cubes on the saucer, and there would be Toffee Crisp bars cut into small pieces, and Jammie Dodgers and Rich Tea biscuits on a tray. On cold nights—our stingylandlord always kept the heat low—he’d fill up a hot water bottle and put it in my bed, so the sheets were warm when I got inside. Once a week, he bought my mother flowers from the bodega on our corner.
    Tonight, as we ate dinner, I twirled and retwirled the spaghetti on my fork. My mom seemed distracted; she kept glancing out the window. She always seemed in her own world lately. She’d leave little Post-it notes all over the place— Tuesday: department meeting, pick up dry cleaning, pay electric bill, committee report, grades due —and forget about them. I’d find them and stick them in her bag. Or she’d forget that she’d left the iron on, and I’d have to turn it off. She had insomnia, and sometimes I’d hear her up at three thirty in the morning.
    I took a breath and finally told her, “I’ve been reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She’s amazing. The best part is when she says—”
    My mom wasn’t listening. She stared into space and tucked a gray strand of hair behind her ear. She’d stopped dyeing it in the last year. She touched the edges of the faded, worn Pucci scarf around her neck. She used to love to hunt through thrift shops in the bowels of Queens and Brooklyn and unearth vintage Lanvin skirts and Yves Saint Laurent shoes for dirt cheap. When I was little, I’d hide in the middle of the clothing racks and squeal when she found me, and she’d always let me pick out a little treasure—a glass heart-shaped box or a wind-up toy.
    We never went shopping together anymore, and she hardly went out for fun at all now, except for her weekly dinner with Larry at Meredith’s restaurant in Bayside (if you could call that fun).
    Now, my mom took a deep breath, looked up from her plate, and met my gaze. “Larry and I’ve decided to get married,” she said.
    â€œ What? ” I almost spat out my iced tea.
    â€œWe started thinking about it when he got laid off. He needs insurance . . . and it seems like the right time for me to consider marriage.” She said the word marriage the way one might say back surgery .
    â€œI don’t want to worry you, though,” she added. “Larry and I will keep our separate apartments and assets. Our lives won’t change much.”
    â€œYou’re freaking kidding me.” I put down my fork. It clanged on the table. Annie and I still called Larry the Benign Fungus, or sometimes the Sad