Kissing in America by Margo Rabb Page A

Fungus, because he was a disaster magnet. He kept losing things: wallet, keys, library books, his job—recently, the accounting firm where he worked laid off Larry’s entire department. If someone threw a soda can out a window, it would hit him on the head. Birds aimed at his bald spot. Ceiling leaks dripped only onto him. He’d met my mom when he accidentally dumped an entire glass of kosher wine on her thrifted vintage shoes. He tracked down a replacement pair on eBay and hand-delivered them to her office, along with a first edition of Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers , her favorite book.
    I couldn’t think of anything to say. It wasn’t that I hated Larry—it was that I knew she’d decided to marry him because it would be the final, most permanent way to forget my dad.
    â€œDo you even love him?”
    â€œHe’s a good person. I like him very much.”
    â€œYou hardly know him.” I should’ve seen this coming, that they were getting serious. A month ago, Larry’s mother, Irma, had flown from Texas to New York to meet us. Irma’s hair was whipped into a frothy golden swirl; her teeth looked as white and thick as bathroom tiles. She’d taken us to dinner at a barbecue place in midtown where you could drop your peanut shells on the floor, and kept smiling at me somewhat creepily and saying, “Isn’t she cute?” as if I wasn’t actually there.
    â€œWe know each other well. Really well,” my mom said.
    â€œYou said like . You didn’t say love .”
    â€œNot every relationship involves sunsets and pirate ships.”
    We left most of our dinner on our plates.
    In my parents’ wedding pictures, my mom literally had stars in her eyes, bright glints in the photos. They’d gotten married at City Hall and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain. In the pictures (taken by Lulu) my mom wore a vintage white short dress and carried a white umbrella; my parents’ faces glowed beneath it, beaming.
    When my mom looked at Larry, her eyes said, Please don’t spill that on me .
    Now my mom washed the dishes while I hid in my room. Sunsets and pirate ships . She was always saying things that squashed little bits of my soul. She’d see me wearing one of Annie’s sister’s old miniskirts and say, “Where’d you get that ?” Or she’d look at my romance covers, or walk in while Annie and I were watching a Lifetime movie, and make scoffing noises. Annie and I even had a hand motion for it: we’d mash an invisible flea with our thumbs. It had become a joke, but it was telling the truth, too: every time she said these things, she crushed tiny little bits of me.
    I decided to call Lulu and ask for advice. She told me, “This trip to LA is perfect timing for both of you. You each need some space right now. You can give her some time alone with Larry, so she can be sure she’s making the right decision. And maybe time away will help you wrap your head around it, too. Remind her of that and she’ll let you go.”
    I hoped she was right. My mom had to agree that it was a good idea for me to go away right now. And I was sure the uninterrupted time with Larry would make her come to her senses and call it off.
    My mom knocked on the door. I was still talking to Lulu on the phone, so I said good-bye and passed the phone to her, and they talked for a few minutes.
    â€œWhat were you and Lulu talking about?” she asked me after they hung up.
    â€œNothing,” I said. “School stuff.”
    I knew Lulu wouldn’t tell my mom what we spoke about. They had sort of an agreement—my mom liked that I had“another female role model” to confide stuff in, and so she let us talk without making Lulu share it with her. It was good that Lulu lived in Arizona, since otherwise my mom might make her crack under pressure.
    I decided to tell my mom about the trip the next night. After