After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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Dad's home tomorrow so today, Mom and I are heading to the Christmas tree farm a couple of miles away to pick up a tree and get it decorated before his return. He loves the season, but he has no style or flair for decoration and it's best if we get it done without him.
"So," Mom says as we get into the car at nine o'clock, before we've even had breakfast.
"Yeah?" I buckle my seatbelt. It's pretty much the first we've spoken in almost two days – yesterday, I left to get to Laurel's before Mom left for work and when I got back after nine, she was already in bed. Mom glances at me as she pulls out of the driveway, driving slowly on the snow-dusted road.
"You must've gotten home late last night," she says. "I didn't hear you come in."
"It was only about nine thirty."
"Which is, what, thirteen hours after you left yesterday morning?"
"For most of which I was with Ava." I turn up the heating and switch the radio station to something other than a dry recounting of the ever depressing news. "Laurel and I had dinner when she got back and then I came home."
"Was it good?"
"We just had pizza."
"Not the food itself," Mom says with a roll of her eyes. "Was it nice, having dinner with Laurel?"
"Oh. Yeah." I nod, smiling to myself, thinking of the way she kissed me, the hint of wine on her breath, the slip of her tongue against mine. "Yeah, it was really nice. Long overdue."
"Good." Mom smiles at the road ahead. "I'm happy for you, hon. As long as she's not taking advantage of you because you happen to enjoy babysitting."
"Ha! Trust me, she's not taking advantage. I practically begged her to let me look after Ava today. It was between me and her mom and I'm not kidding, her mom is, like, one of the most awful people I've met in real life. She is such a bitch."
"Hey," Mom snaps. Mom rarely snaps. It jolts me. "That is no way to talk about someone's mother. How would you feel if Laurel called me a bitch?"
"I'd be mighty fucking confused because obviously you're not," I say, "but hers is." I tell her about yesterday, the awkward and slightly scary encounter at the garden center, and I sprinkle in a few of the old fights Laurel's told me about.
"I see," Mom says eventually, as we turn down the narrow lane that leads to the farm. "She sounds like a bitch."
"Thank you."
Cooper tugs on his leash as we wander through the rows and rows of trees, the selection already starting to dwindle sixteen days before Christmas. We're a week late getting our tree, according to tradition, but there are still plenty of seven-foot Nordmann firs for us to choose from.
"They don't drop their needles so much," Mom says as she inspects branches, "and they don't set off your dad's allergies."
"Since when was Dad allergic to non-Nordmann Christmas trees?" I ask, walking in a circle around an impressively wide tree. Too big for our space, else it'd be perfect. Cooper cocks a leg against it. His pee steams.
