Late to the Party ✔

4. Mama didn't raise no fool

Mary should've known the moment her mother gave in.

She'd been staring at the string beans she'd bought, slumped against the counter, water dripping from the strain, thinking that maybe she could make Missy come shell them. She'd been wide awake all night, seething with rage at Jeanie mocking her faith and falling apart with the thought of losing her yet again, mixed in with simmering guilt—she shouldn't have been thinking about her at all. Of course, on top of needing to cook a dinner that probably wouldn't even be appreciated, the phone had rung.

Sheldon. Her son was demanding to be picked up from the dorm he spent his free periods in, even though she'd just dropped him off a couple of hours ago with a wrapped turkey sandwich and a juice box. She had half a mind to tell him to be a big boy and wait until his father would come and collect him later that evening.

Yet, despite the evidence to the contrary, Mary Cooper strove to be a good mother, and she refused to give the folks around here another thing to wag their tongues about. So, she set out to do what any good mother would do, and called her own.

"Please," she begged, pressing a cool hand against her throbbing temple. She had a headache coming on since the early morning, and it'd chosen that moment to intensify. "I'm not fit to drive."

And, against all expectations, her mother had caved instantly. "One condition," she'd said. "I can bring my dinner guest."

As soon as Mary ducked to peek through the windows of her mother's Cadillac, she regretted not double-checking who said dinner guest was.

She turned her eyes to the darkening sky. Leave it to her mother to pull something like this.

She tried the door on the passenger's side, but predictably, it was locked, and she was forced to get in the back.

Jeanie had cramped herself as far as possible against the window, as if Mary was carrying some contagious disease. "Mary," she grumbled, decidedly unenthusiastic.

"Ma, what is she doing here?"

She hadn't even closed the door before her mother stepped on the gas, and both passengers were thrown back in their seats, Jeanie's head knocking on the glass.

"Be grateful we wanted to come," her mother said in her usual grouchy voice. "We're giving up a good night of drinking for you."

"You were going out drinking with my mother?"

Her mother's glare reached her through the rearview mirror. Mary could see now that she'd gotten all gussied up: pepper-and-salt hair teased up high like always, blue eyeshadow, painted lips, dangly earrings, and a new blouse in vibrant shades of red. "Hey! Don't say it like that. I'm a delight."

Jeanie shrugged. "She is. And the only delight who will talk to me in this whole goddamned town."

"Now you're just doing it to rile me up!"

"I wasn't—I'm just using words, Mary!"

"They're more than just words to me—"

"You never used to be this sensitive—"

"If you wanna say 'em, go on then—"

"In fact, I can recall you saying a whole lot worse—"

"So, I've grown as a person—"

Out of nowhere, the car skidded to a halt. Both of them smacked forward into the plush front seats. "Hey!" Her mother whipped around to face them, her eyes flashing. "What's this about? It's like y'all are fourteen years old again, bickering about which one of you can take Eddie Byers to Winter Formal. If you don't stop your yapping right this minute, I swear I'll leave both of you stranded out in the middle of the desert."