Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss Read Free Book Online Page A

she still plans on driving you to campus.” She turned to the side to let me pass and brushed at her housecoat the way she did when she had something to say but wouldn’t. “Goodness knows you won’t need your old mother hanging around.”
    “I’ll ask,” I said. “Can I have a minute?”
    “ May I,” she said automatically.
    “ May I have a minute? Please?” She must have heard the desperation in my voice, because she only reached out to smooth my hair back from my face before turning away and disappearing down the hall. I picked up the phone immediately and clamped the receiver between my ear and shoulder. “When did you get home?”
    “Hello to you too.” Her voice on the other end of the line was oddly worn—breathless and crackling with fatigue. She was exhausted , she said. She and her father had driven all day to get home by dark and she was famished , she said. She was absolutely beat.
    “We’re due at the dorm by one tomorrow,” I reminded her, winding the telephone cord around and around my finger until the tip turned purple. “My father was going to take the bus so we could have the car, Mother and I. I didn’t know if you’d be back in time. But if you think you’ll still be able to drive, of course I’d rather—”
    “I said I would, didn’t I?” she said, a little impatiently. “I’ll be there by noon. Noonish. I got held up, that’s all. Unavoidable delays.” She hadn’t packed, she said. She hadn’t even un packed, for Christ’s sake. “And for the love of God, please stop worrying,” she said. “I can hear you worrying all the way down the block, so just don’t. It’s driving me absolutely berserk.”
    * * *
    Morning found me dressed and at the breakfast table long before anyone was up; I made a pot of coffee and drank cup after cup while I waited for my parents to come down, Mother reaching out to tip my chin up as she came into the dining room, the lilac scent of her perfume strong.
    “A little rouge?” she said, sinking into her chair. “Brighten you up? What about a touch of lipstick?” She drew one of her gold tubes from the pocket of her housecoat and slid it across the table. “The saleslady said it’s their most popular shade.” She watched as I dabbed it on my lips and pressed. “Keep it. It’s better with your complexion. Brings out your eyes.” She frowned. “You look a little tired.”
    “Too excited to sleep?”
    I tried to return my father’s smile. “Something like that.”
    “You’d tell me if you thought we needed to run out to Bullock’s for another pair of stockings, wouldn’t you?” Mother checked her watch. “We have the time if we leave this minute. Do you have enough sweaters?”
    My father stopped with his toast halfway to his mouth. “It’s ninety-five degrees today. They’re saying over a hundred by the afternoon.”
    “If it were up to you, Walter, I swear,” she sighed. “She’d go off for the year without so much as a toothbrush.”
    He looked at me fondly. “She’s going to be just fine. Aren’t you, Queenie?”
    “I certainly hope so.”
    My mother pushed her napkin across the table at my father. “Crumbs,” she said, gesturing at her chin. “Honestly, Walter. You wouldn’t send a soldier off into battle without the proper ammunition, would you?”
    My father wiped his chin slowly and folded his napkin back under his plate; he was such a careful man, your grandfather, his every movement methodical. “We could certainly manage another sweater.”
    I said I thought I’d be alright without the sweater. My mother poured out the orange juice for everyone and reminded me to call the moment I arrived. “The minute, ” she said. “Or else we’ll start to worry, do you hear? It’s not every day your only daughter goes off to college all on her own. Never mind me—” She produced a handkerchief from the pocket of her housecoat and dabbed at her eyes. I nodded and said I was looking forward to it, though the