learn-who-your-real-friends-are moment. Itâs mutual, because when Erik was being wooed away from her lab by the big Ivy across the Charles River, Mom was beside herself until he rejected their offer.
How she resists an übersmart, ridiculously fit hottie whoâs devoted to her and gave her his guys to produce a fabulous kid like me is another question entirely.
Mom circles behind me and reaches up to give my shoulders a gentle squeeze. âWhatâs in the oven? It smells like chicken.â
âBingo.â
âReally lovely, Julia.â
I should admit itâs precooked supermarket rotisserie chicken, but sheâs already yelling into the fridge. âThanks for getting dinner going! The rain had traffic at a standstill! Did you know the Aberjona overflowed and they closed Main Street?â
âI notice rain, yes,â I say.
She produces a bruised onion triumphantly. âThis should perk up the salad.â
I take the onion and set to work at the cutting board. The knife gets stuck in the mealy layers. âI donât care that you were late,â I lie. Itâs a fine line, wanting Mom around, but not wanting Mom around as much as in the Berkshires.
âI care.â She cups her hand over mine. âIâll slice. You finish the salad.â
I drop the knife and move to the sink. Mom chatters about a dating epidemic among her latest crop of postdocs while I squint through the window. Somewhere in that purple darkness is an improbably gorgeous, rolling grass lawn. We are the last people in the world who should have a backyard, given that Mom spends most of her life under artificial light and Iâm afraid of trees in any number. Yet thereâs our backyard, a rarity in Shiverton, where grand colonials and Victorians are wedged into lots the size of postage stamps. We even have a deck and Adirondack chairs, price tags still tied to the legs.
The knife slices, onion to wood, chop , chop , chop , a solid noise that I should like, but it flicks at my belly.
âTruth be told, I had a difficult day,â Mom says. âThe rhythm gets lost when the lab director goes on sabbatical. Grievances take root among the more difficult personalities. And obviously I feel guilty about being late for dinner again. Perhaps itâs not the best night to strategize. Iâm not thinking clearly.â
âItâs not like Iâm going to call her back,â I say.
The knife hangs in the air. âHer?â she says.
âHim. I meant him.â
Mom smiles tightly at the board and starts a vigorous hand-over-hand chop. âThe Berkshires are looking better every minute.â She catches my alarm at my slip and misinterprets it. âDonât worry, weâre not going anywhere.â
I manage a fake laugh. âSpeaking of difficult personalities, I saw Mrs. Lapin today. She hasnât changed.â
âStill hard on Liv?â
âYou could say that. Actually, sheâs worried the reporters are going to start up again, too. Because, you know, they might catch her off guard, when her hair isnât perfect. Or Livâs hair isnât perfect. That would be worse, I think.â
Mom grimaces, slipping on quilted mitts and pulling the chicken from the oven. Its taut skin crackles. The smell fills the kitchen, and I know itâs heavenly, and that I should feel hunger, but thereâs nothing.
âWe all have different coping mechanisms,â Mom says.
âDeborah is a narcissist so obsessed with her daughterâs shiny image that Liv isnât allowed to cope.â I rinse the cutting board and wash the knife. âShe barely gives Liv room to breathe. Now Livâs seeing Shane Cuthbert, which is wrong on so many levels.â
âLiv was always a bit fickle. Maybe her tastes have changed.â
âShane tastes like rancid meat, trust me. Or like pot. A pot-burger,â I say.
âI remember him as a handsome kid.
Learning to Kill: Stories