I spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework in the kitchen, or at least trying to, given that my powers of concentration were all over the place.
My mother came home in the early evening carrying a pizza box and a bag on top. I wanted to believe that the box contained normal, cheese pizza and the bag contained garlic knots, but I knew my mother too well. She put the box on the table. “Hi, honey. I got pizza! I know it’s your favorite,” my mother sung out.
“What kind?” I asked, suspicious since I knew what my mother’s version of pizza was.
My mother sighed. “Well, the crust is whole wheat and the cheese is low fat, and I had them top it with veggies. But it tastes the same as the regular stuff.” My mother always insisted healthy food tasted just as good as, if not better than, the deliciously high-fat, high-sugar, highly processed food I longed for.
“You got garlic knots?” I asked, gesturing toward the bag.
“Salad.”
“Mom, we live in New Jersey. You can’t throw a rock five feet in any direction without getting good pizza. Why do you have to get this . . . this . . . pseudo pizza? You’re killing me!”
“Get over it. You should thank me for not being an obesity statistic. Now do you want pizza or not?”
I got up and got the plates down from the cabinet in answer to her question.
“How’s Nona?”
“She’s fine. I checked on her a little while ago. She was awake so I put the TV on for her. Want me to bring her dinner?”
“No, I’ll do it when we’re done.”
I helped myself to a slice and my mother was doing the same.
“So how was school today?”
“Fine.”
“That’s it? Just fine? Have you made any new friends? Do anything interesting in any of your classes?”
I loved my mother, but I hated the interrogation. Although I’m sure my mother didn’t see it that way. In her eyes she was just trying to “open the lines of communication” or one of those other psychobabble lines from one of the many self-help books she had about talking to your kids.
“No, Mom. It’s all pretty much status quo.” I wasn’t about to say anything about Asher. Although I didn’t really like lying to my mother, in the scheme of things it was a small price to pay for my privacy.
“Really? What about that boy who came over today?”
What the? I almost choked on my pizza.
“How did you know?” I asked after getting the lump of food down my throat.
“I have my ways.” My mother smiled. “Mrs. Budnicki was out on her porch smoking when I got home. She mentioned that you had a very handsome gentleman caller. Well, I’m assuming he was handsome since Mrs. Budnicki described him as ‘hot to trot’ and said if you were her daughter she’d make sure you weren’t allowed to be alone with this boy until after the wedding.”
Argh.
Mrs. Budnicki from next door. Otherwise known as Mrs. Budinsky, my seventy-five-year-old nemesis. That woman had been a thorn in my side since the day I was born. Yelling at me to get off her lawn. Taking any balls that I had accidentally thrown over her fence. Giving me and only me raisins at Halloween instead of candy because she knew my mother was a “health nut.” Of course Mrs. Budnicki had nothing better to do than to spy on me!
