Around the Bend by Shirley Jump Read Free Book Online

I’ll watch a movie.” She settled her purse in her lap again and stared straight ahead. Reginald snarfled in agreement and laid his head on the console between us. I had to work really hard to not be grossed out by the thought of a pig lying on the leather of my car, his wet nose against my elbow, and Lord only knew what was coming out of said nose every time he made a noise. “It’s not natural to listen to a book anyway. That’s why they have pages, Hilary. So you can read them.”
    “Fine.” My teeth hurt. “Let’s try some music. I brought several CDs of—”
    “I don’t like music in the car. It’s too distracting.”
    “Distracting for what? You’re not doing anything.”
    “For you. You could get all wrapped up in—” she reached into the plastic dish that held the CDs, yanked one of them out “—Barry Manilow Sings the Fifties and next thing I know, you’re plowing into a North American Van Lines truck.”
    I laughed. “Ma, I seriously doubt I’ll get distracted by Barry Manilow. I don’t even like Barry Manilow.”
    “Then why did you bring that CD?”
    “I thought you’d like it.”
    “Oh.” She turned the plastic case over, read the list of songs on the back, then placed it back in the dish. “That was very thoughtful, Hilary.”
    She said it like I’d bought her a gift certificate for hangnail removal. “I thought you liked Barry Manilow. You went to his concert.”
    “Your father liked him. I went along for the ride.”
    “You went to a concert just because Dad liked the singer? Why would you sit through something like that if you didn’t even like it?”
    She turned to face me then, her face clear and surprised. “I loved your father, Hilary. Why wouldn’t I do that?”
    “Because you’re allowed to have your own likes, Ma. You didn’t have to pretend to like things just because Dad did.” Would Nick and I end up like that five years down the road, ten? Me pretending to like things just to make him happy?
    “He knew how I felt. We didn’t have any secrets, your father and I.”
    And yet…the way she said that—too fast, too pat—I wondered how many secrets they’d had that she wouldn’tadmit. What marriage didn’t have a few secrets? I thought of Karen and Jerry, who had been my next door neighbors and relationship-advice gurus for ten years. Karen had told me about the shopping she kept from Jerry, the receipts she kept in her wallet, and the blind eye she turned to his occasional after-work beer with his buddies.
    What if the buddies he shared a Coors Light with had breasts and wore high heels? What if her trips to the mall involved more than a few sweaters and a new raincoat? They told lies, kept secrets, and each seemed to know, but ignored them, like messes behind closet doors. “A little space,” Karen said, “is a necessity. If he knew everything, I’d be suffocated.”
    That’s what I was most afraid of with Nick. Being suffocated. Moving in with him for good, having him know everything, from my bra size to how often I washed my laundry, to whether I ate breakfast. I liked my space, and I didn’t want to answer to anyone for where I had been last Saturday or what I’d spent last week’s paycheck on.
    And I didn’t want to spend my Saturday evenings wondering if he’d really been knocking back a Bud with Lou or LouAnn.
    Space. I needed lots of it.
    Karen and Jerry had gotten more or less lucky, my parents, I suspected, not so much. To me, that meant I had a fifty-fifty chance with Nick. Those odds simply weren’t good enough to be betting the rest of my life.
    “So who do you like, Ma?” I asked.
    “Who do I like for what?”
    “Singers, music.”
    She lifted one shoulder, dropped it, stared out the window. “I never really thought about it.”
    “Oh, come on, everyone has a favorite singer. A favorite song or two.”
    “Do you?”
    I didn’t say anything for a second, watching the signs carefully as we made the switch on 90 north to