Page 2 of A Very Snowed In New Year
“This is not some salacious HBO show about promiscuous teenagers, Rebecca. This is our daughter! And our daughter is obsessed with boys’ butts and sex!”
“She is anaficionadoof boys’ butts, and she’s obsessed withwritingabout sex, not having it. She’s been like this since she was thirteen!”
My poor dad groans.
“She’s in college now, Josh. Just trust her.”
“First of all, it is the men at her college that I don’t trust. Nor do I trust the men in Los Angeles as a whole. Or New York. Or any living man on the planet. Second—you’rethe one who’s always reading her diary.”
“Yeah, and she’s always known it! It’s our thing. She acts like she thinks I’m a dork, but really she knows I’m hip and this is how she communicates with me.”
Wrong. I will always think my mom is a dork.
“I’m fairly certain she genuinely considers us to be dorks.”
“Whatever. She wouldn’t have left this out unless she wanted me to read it. It’s cool.”
“Nothing about this is cool, Bex. Not one damn thing. We can’t let her go back to LA.”
“Oh my God, you are way too freaked out about this, babe. I think a little exposure therapy is in order here, okay? Confrontyour fears. You’ll feel a lot better if you just read a few pages. They’re just words.”
Oh, for shit’s sake.
My mom is the worst. But she’s also right. And it’s infuriating. My dad needs to deal with the fact that I am a nineteen-year-old woman who will one day have mind-blowing intercourse with someone really wonderful who has an amazing butt and is a really good kisser. And honestly? I don’t know which one of us needs this more—my dad or me. Because I also need to stop worrying about my dad worrying about me.
So I will stay hidden here around the corner for another minute or two, until one of us has come to terms with my impending real-womanhood.
“Here,” my mom says to my dad. “Have some wine first.”
“I am not going to drink chardonnay.”
“You don’t want to be totally sober when you read this, trust me.” My mom sounds like she’s enjoying herself way too much. “She isn’t going to be out all night—come on. Read it out loud. I need to know that you’re really absorbing it.”
“I’m not going to read it out loud—Ben will hear.”
“He’s playingSuper Mario. He doesn’t care about anything else in the world right now. Here. Read this list.”
Oh no. Not the list.
“For each line you read from this list of ten…collections of harmless words…I will do a thing that you want me to do to you for date night next week.”
Ew.
But also—how else was I going to turn out with a mother like this?!
I can hear my dad gulping down the wine and then placing the glass on a coaster. “You are a devious woman and you are out of your damn mind. Hand it over.”
Oh God. Here we go. I cover my face.
My dad clears his throat. “10 Ways I Can’t Wait to Screw.Oh for Christ’s sake—no! Absolutely not.”
“Just keep reading. It’s so cute.”
Cute?!
My dad grunts, then sighs, then clears his throat again. “One. Nailed against a wall, like inThe Notebook. Although, I guess that’s technically a wall kiss? But so fire! I would feel banged, I’m sure.I can’t. No. Where is she? She will begin her internship at my company in January, and she will never leave my sight.”
“Fine, I’ll read the rest.Two. In a dimly lit library, like inAtonement, preferably with a guy who has an English accent, while I’m wearing a beautiful silky green dress, and it’s just the sound of a ticking clock and us breathing. Sooooo hottttttt.”
