“I just drove for hours,” I point out. “She knows that.”
“It’s her anniversary,” Mom counters.
“And her husband’s too,” I add, standing up straight again and turning around to face her. Mom hugs me tight and kisses me on either cheek.
“The drive must not have been too bad,” she observes. “I was expecting you in another hour or so.”
“I ended up getting out of the city early,” I explain. “I figured if I’m up anyway, I might as well get on the road.”
Mom rubs my back and I unlock the trunk. “So you’re here for a full week?”
I nod as I grab my suitcase from the trunk, along with the present I’ve got for the neighbors’ anniversary.
“Bev was just telling me she expects Zane in tonight, too.”
“Zane is in town?” I raise an eyebrow at that. I haven’t seen Zane in years, in spite of the fact that we’ve both come back to our parents’ homes dozens of times. Around the time I started my sophomore year of college, he shipped out to the army, and somehow we both managed to miss the other one ever since.
“He’s not about to miss his parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” Mom points out. “Not without a good reason.”
“I would think ‘the army wouldn’t give me leave’ would be a good reason,” I say.
“Well, they would, and they did. So he’s flying in tonight from wherever-it-is they have him stationed right now.”
“Good for them,” I say, shrugging. “It’ll be nice to see Zane again.”
“The army’s done wonders for him,” Mom tells me as we walk back up to the house. “Before he joined all he did was use his looks to bed half the girls in town. Although it’s easy to see how, he’s such a gorgeous young man.”
“Mom!” I look at her sharply.
“It’s fine to look at someone like him, as long as looking is all it is. He’s not exactly boyfriend material.”
“You’re married, and old enough to be his mother. I don’t know that it is okay for you to be looking.”
“Sure it is. As long as I never intend to do anything about it, or even try to intend to do anything about it,” Mom tells me cheerfully. “Besides, your dad isn’t even discreet about it when he gives a younger woman the once-over.”
I feel my cheeks burning and I close my eyes for a moment. I can’t really say why I feel so embarrassed to hear something like this. I mean, my parents obviously have a sex life, and they’re human beings and all that. But it feels weird hearing her talk about the guy I grew up with like he’s someone from a GQ spread or something.
“They need to fix your hormones,” I say, walking into the house. “You’re turning into a letch.”
“I am not a letch,” Mom says tartly. “I am simply an older woman who knows what she likes.”
I roll my eyes at that and start up the stairs to my old room.
“I’m going back next door, come over when you’re ready to lend a hand,” Mom calls to me.
“You’re still painting, right?” I look over my shoulder to see Mom nod. “I’ll change into clothes I can get covered in paint, and then come over.”
I open up my suitcase once I’m in my room, and find my jeans and T-shirt. While I’m getting changed, I look out my window. Across the yard, the blinds are shut in the window directly opposite mine, so I can’t see into it, but I know that by the end of the day Zane will be in there. His parents, like mine, probably kept his bedroom more or less the way it was the day he left home.
I glance around my own room. Thankfully I had managed to develop some sense of taste by the time I left for New York City, for my then-new and exciting job at the publishing company. I’d last had my parents paint the walls a creamy off-white with a sage-green trim, and the bed that my parents had bought for me was a full-size with a wrought-iron headboard.
I toss my clothes from the drive into the hamper, and pull my hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of my face. I’m ready to go say hello to the Lewises and throw myself into helping them get ready for all the partying they’re going to do.
I say a quick hello to my dad out on the back patio on my way over. He’s in the middle of building something. Even if I hadn’t already volunteered to help next door, I had got into the habit when I was a kid of avoiding him when he worked with tools, because Mom didn’t want me to hear him cussing.
Of course, by now I could probably teach him a few phrases. Living in New York has been educational. I give him a quick peck on the cheek, and make my way across the yard, over the property line to the house next door.