Page 87 of My Debacle with De Lorenzo

We enter the kitchen and find my mom at the stove and my dad at the counter chopping sweet potato.

“Mom, Dad, this is Bella.”

“Isabella,” she corrects.

My mom closes the oven door, then turns around and throws the dishtowel over her shoulder as she approaches us. “Hi, Isabella. Welcome.”

“Hi, Mrs. De Lorenzo,” she greets tentatively.

“I’m not fifty. I’m young. I’m hip. I’m...what’s that word these kids are using these days, Giorgio?”

“Lit,” he fills in.

“I’m lit. Call me Lorraine. All his other friends do. Will you be joining us for dinner?”

“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, I can’t.” Her husky voice sounds deceptively sweet. “I have so much homework I need to complete before tomorrow.”

That’s a lie. I have to get her back before her mom gets home because Mrs. Diaz doesn’t know she’s sneaking around with me again.

“Maybe next time,” mom says, just staring at Bella. If she does it any longer, it’s going to get creepy. “Wow, you sure are pretty. I see why he calls you Bella. You know that means beautiful in Italian?”

Bella turns to look at me and smiles. “So, you’ve been flirting with me this whole time, De Lorenzo? I didn’t even know.”

“That’s because my son isn’t great at flirting. I’m surprised he even had the guts to talk to someone as pretty as you. He’s such a dweeb.”

“Mom.”

“Dammit, Lorraine,” dad chastises. “What were the results of your self-reflection because you’ve clearly learned nothing from it?”

“Who says dweeb anymore, honestly? I thought you were supposed to be lit.”

She looks at Bella again. “Don’t you think he’s a dweeb?”

“He’s an exceptionally good-looking dweeb.” And then they both giggle about it.

“Don’t give him any credit for that,” mom quips. “He gets it from us.”

My dad walks over and taps me on the shoulder. “Scorching betrayal there, son.”

“Tell me about it.”

My mother takes an instant liking to her. She leaves my dad and I in charge of the food, then leaves the kitchen with Bella. I think they disappear into the cellar because they return twenty minutes later with a bottle of wine, and they seem like they’re the best of friends.

“I wish you could stay for dinner,” my mother says. “I’ve enjoyed talking with you so much.”

My dad and I exchange wary looks. Bella can’t see it, but we can. The yearning is there, written all over my mother’s face. It’s the little things that happen in this house that can so easily tip our well-balanced scales. My mom just got sucked into a dream world. Mother-daughter moments are now lost to her forever, but for a fleeting twenty minutes, she had it in that dream world. She lived it vicariously through Bella. For those twenty minutes, life seemed normal again, and all of us are craving some sense of normalcy, but it only exists in that dream world.

Bella smiles. “I promise I’ll join you guys for dinner some other time, but I have to go now.”

I wait for her to say goodbye, then walk out with her to my car. “And? Did my mother scare you off?” I ask as we get in. I use a playful tone, but I want to know what the conversation was about to assess the damage.

“No, she’s great and so funny. A little weird, but?”

“What was weird?” I urge as I back the car out of the driveway and onto the street.

“I don’t know. We talked about family and school and going to college, normal stuff, but she was just...veryexcited, almost hanging on my every word. It was just weird.”

“Can I ask you for a favor?”

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