Are we? That doesn’t feel like what we’re talking about. “What’s your point, Mom?”
Her face freezes, only her lashes fluttering, as I’ve seen happen during difficult debates. I can sense her struggling to contain her temper, summon tactful words. “Samantha. One thing you’ve always been good at is making choices. Your sister would jump in with her eyes shut, but you would think. Even when you were very little. Smart choices. Smart friends. You had Nan. Tracy had that awful Emma with the nose ring, and Darby. Remember Darby? With the boyfriend and the hair? I know that’s why Tracy got into all that trouble in middle school. The wrong people can lead you to make the wrong decisions.”
“Did Dad—” I start, but she cuts in.
“I don’t want you seeing this Garrett boy.”
I won’t let her do this—take away Jase like he’s an obstacle in her path, or mine, like the way she’ll sometimes just throw out clothes I’ve bought if she doesn’t like them, like the way she made me quit swim team.
“Mom. You can’t just say that. We haven’t done anything wrong. I rode on a motorcycle with him. We’re friends. I’m seventeen.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m not comfortable with this, Samantha.”
“What if I’m not comfortable with Clay Tucker? Because I’m not. Are you going to stop seeing him, stop having him”—I make air quotes, something I despise—“advise you on the campaign?”
“It’s a completely different and a separate situation,” Mom says stiffly. “We’re adults who know how to be answerable for consequences. You’re a child. Involved with someone I don’t know and have no reason to trust.”
“I trust him.” My voice is rising. “Shouldn’t that be enough? Me being the responsible one who makes smart choices and all?”
Mom pours soap into the blender I’d left in the sink, sprays water into it, then scrubs furiously. “I don’t like your tone, Samantha. When you talk like this I don’t know who you are.”
This makes me furious. And then in the next second, exhausted. Whoever I am scares me a little. I’ve never talked to my mother like this, and it’s not the chill of the central air-conditioning that prickles the skin of my arms. But as I see Mom cast yet another of a decade’s worth of critical looks over at the Garretts in their yard, I know where I’m going.
I walk to the side door and bend to put on my flip-flops.
Mom’s right behind me.
“You’re walking away? We haven’t resolved this! You can’t leave.”
“I’ll be right back,” I toss over my shoulder. Then I march across the porch, around the fence, and up the driveway to put my hand on the warm skin of Jase’s back, bent over the innards of the Mustang.
He turns his head to smile at me, quickly wiping his forehead with his wrist. “Sam!”
“You look hot,” I say.
He shoots a quick glance over at his mother, still reading to George and feeding Patsy. Duff and Harry have evidently taken their fight elsewhere.
“Um, thanks.” He sounds bemused.
“Come with me. To my house.”
“I’m kind of—I should probably take a shower. Or get a shirt.”
I’m pulling at his hand now, slippery with sweat and grease. “You’re fine the way you are. Come on.”
Jase looks at me for a moment, then follows. “Should I have gotten my tool kit?” he asks mildly as I tow him up the steps.
“Nothing needs fixing. Not like that.”
I can hear from outside that Mom’s got the vacuum cleaner back on. I open the door and gesture inside. Jase, eyebrows raised, steps in.
“Mom!” I call.
She straightens up from vacuuming one of the sofa cushions, then just stands there, looking back and forth between us. I walk over and flip the vacuum off.
“This is Jase Garrett, Mom. One of your constituents. He’s thirsty and he’d love some of your lemonade.”
Chapter Thirty-one
“So now you’ve met my mother,” I say to Jase that night, leaning back on the roof.
“I sure have. That was awesome. And completely uncomfortable.”
“The lemonade made it all worthwhile, though, right?”
“The lemonade was fine,” Jase says. “It was the girl who made it awesome.”
I sit up, edge over close to my window, and push it open, slipping one leg in, then the next, turning back to Jase. “Come on.”
His smile flashes in the gathering dark as his eyebrows lift, but he climbs carefully in as I lock my bedroom door.
“Be still,” I tell him. “Now I’m going to learn all about you.”