Page 12 of All That Glitters
Her mother sat down across from her in that annoying way parents do when they’re preparing for a serious conversation. “So, you just decided to uproot and move to San Diego?”
“I can bring my roots with me,” Debbie said. “I hear the ground’s really fertile there.”
“Honey, don’t you think you should wait? This could be your only chance to see Europe.”
That was her mom, the queen of buzzkill, and able to find potential regret in any decision.
“I’m sure it’ll be there after I graduate,” Debbie said. “I hear continental drift is moving much slower than they expected.”
“But then you’ll have student loans and responsibilities.”
Debbie let out an exasperated sigh. “If that’s the mom pep talk speech, it needs some work.”
Her mother’s expression softened. She reached across the table and patted Debbie’s hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I just don’t want to see you make a mistake.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me how we learn from our mistakes? Think about what a learning opportunity this is going to be.”
Her mother smiled. She had that knowing look that annoyed Debbie to no end. The one that said she knew the real reason Debbie was doing something.
“This is about Tony, isn’t it?”
“No,” Debbie said, perhaps a little too quickly. “It’s about roots, and moving, and teaching, and the beach. And did I mention the beach?”
“You did mention the beach. And it has Tony.”
“Mom.”
Debbie said it with the exasperation of someone who’d had fifteen years of these mother-daughter talks that danced around the subject of Tony Harding.
“Okay, honey.” Her mom took a breath. “It’s your decision. But I hope you’ll think about it.”
Debbie breathed with relief. “That’s it? No, ‘I can’t believe I carried you for nine months and now you’re throwing your life away’ guilt trip?”
Her mom smiled and pulled Debbie into a hug. “No guilt trip this time. Just promise me you’ll think about it. Okay?”
Debbie nodded. “I promise.”
They both knew it was a lie.
Chapter five
Cell Phones and Second Chances
The sun beat down on the asphalt of the strip mall parking lot, turning the air into a shimmering, exhaust-choked haze. On the corner of the block, where dignity went to die a slow, sweaty death, some poor idiot stood waving at passing cars, trapped inside a ridiculous sponge-rubber cell phone costume.
The idiot, as it happened, was Tony.
He was sweltering inside the stuffy, smelly foam suit, peering out at the world through a flimsy plastic screen that was already smudged with his own breath. This was his ‘job in telecommunications.’ This was what a college degree in beer studies bought you these days. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, holding his own cell phone up to the head-hole of his costume.
“…Wait. Say that one more time,” he said into the phone, a grin spreading across his face. “Because it sounded a lot like Debbie Campbell saying she’s moving out of her parents’ house.”
Debbie’s voice crackled back at him. “And that’s a shocker because…?”
“Because Hell hasn’t frozen over yet,” Tony said, a genuine laugh bubbling up inside him. “I know, because I work there.” The thought of her moving there was like a sudden, cool breeze in the suffocating heat of his foam prison. It would be like old times. His partner in crime, back by his side. A subtle, unfamiliar warmth bloomed in his chest at the thought, a feeling he quickly filed away under ‘friendship’ and refused to examine any further.
A faded sedan slowed as it passed. Tony, on autopilot, gave a half-hearted wave. A beefy arm shot out the passenger window, and a jumbo-sized Big Gulp cup sailed through the air, end over end, before striking him square in the chest. A cold, sticky wave of cheap cola soaked through the front of his costume. The car sped off, its occupants howling with laughter.
“I thought you worked for a law firm,” Debbie said, oblivious to the drive-by sugaring.
