A La Carte by Tanita S. Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

across my mother’s face. Why is Simeon in her daughter’s bed? Should she ask him to stay? Should she hurry him away? What’s going on?
    â€œWe’re just watching old sci-fi,” I babble to fill the silence. “
Buck Rogers…
you know. Bad costumes.”
    â€œI see.” She directs her dark glance at me, riffling her fingers through her cropped natural hair and sighing. I can read words in her expression.
Elaine Seifert, you will explain this later.
    â€œYou’re on at five-thirty?” I ask Simeon, turning slightly toward him.
    â€œYep. You coming out?”
    I glance at my mother. She doesn’t look like she’s up to me going across town to hang out at Sim’s new job. Not tonight.
    â€œNah. See you tomorrow, huh?”
    â€œRight. Bye, Mrs. S.”
    â€œIt was so good to see you, Simeon,” my mother says tiredly, then her genteel Southern instinct bursts forth in ultra-politeness. “Please don’t rush off on my account. I brought back some fresh rolls from the restaurant.”
    Simeon grins. He knows when he’s got my mother off balance. “I think I’ve cleaned you out of sweets again,” he says, giving her a charming glance that never fails to thaw her. “I’d better go while you might still let me come back.”
    My mother, predictably, gives a wry smile and shakes her head. Today, though, her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes as she turns back toward me.
    Sim thanks me for the banana bread and finishes buttoning his shirt as my mother’s glance goes from my bed to me to the boy who is leaving my bedroom and back to me. As soon as Simeon is gone, I can look forward to Vivianne Seifert’s Twenty Questions. I can tell Sim feels the vibe too, ’cause he’s gone before I know it. Coward.
    I’ve said before that Mom is pretty cool. I know she’s reminding herself of this fact as she unbuttons the red cloth fastenings on her chef’s jacket. Her fingers move slowly, and I can practically hear her plotting how this should go.
    Mother: Tell me everything.
    Daughter: Oh, Mother dear, of course!
    â€œSo…it’s nice to see Sim around,” my mother says conversationally.
    Mom’s sermons are always worse when she starts out so calmly. “Yeah. It was good to hang out. He has a job now at that coffee shop, Soy to the World.”
    â€œThat’s good….” Mom trails off, clears her throat. “Elaine, I’m…a little concerned with what I saw today. I’m going to make some guidelines. About visits.”
    â€œVisits?” I tilt my head and try a look of polite curiosity, feeling the blood coming to my face. “We’re just hanging out, like always.”
    Mom levels a glance at me. “I can appreciate that. It was good to see you with a friend over….” Hervoice trails away. “Your friends are always welcome here, but as it stands, we need to make some rules for now.”
    â€œRules? Mom.”
    â€œElaine,” Mom says warningly. “Old friends or not, I…well, I was caught a little off guard by…by a boy in your bed with no shirt on.”
    â€œHe always takes off his shoes over here.”
    â€œElaine.”
    I sigh. “He spilled something on his shirt.”
    â€œAll right—” Mom lifts a placating hand. “Fine. That’s not the issue. But I think…” Mom clears her throat, plunges in. “Honey, we still need some guidelines. I know”—Mom waves her hand over my objections—“that you don’t need to have the little talk I gave you in the fifth grade. I just want you to be clear in your own head, Elaine, what’s going on. You don’t want to have any…regrets…about your friendship now that things have changed between you two….”
    â€œThey
haven’t,
” I snap, my ears heating up. “It’s not like that. Sim doesn’t see