Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst Read Free Page B

She told her mother never to talk if she brings her friends home from school." Anastasia giggled.
    "One more. Sonya. What's her last name, that cute little friend of yours named Sonya?"
    "Isaacson. Well,
her
mother—good grief. Her mother's
fat.
"
    "Gross and embarrassing, right?"
    "Of course."
    Anastasia's mother started to chuckle. She put down her beer can, still almost full, as if she didn't need it anymore. "Sweetie," she said. "Let me explain to you what's wrong. I should have realized it much sooner than this. You say this all started just a couple of weeks ago?"
    "More or less. At least that's when I began to notice it."
    "Remember what happened a couple of weeks ago?"
    Anastasia shrugged. "Nothing much. I did lousy on a math test. I went to a garage sale with Sonya and Meredith, and Dad yelled at me because I spent five dollars on junk. There's another garage sale this Saturday, Mom, so I'm warning you that I may spend money on junk again."
    "Don't you remember that Dad and I took you to dinner at a Chinese restaurant?"
    "Yeah. So what? There was something in the sweet-and-sour pork that made you turn weird?"
    "Nope." Her mother grinned. "Why did we take you out to dinner?"
    "What is this, Twenty Questions? It was my birthday. My thirteenth birthday."
    "Right. And how old are your friends? How old is Daphne?"
    "Thirteen."
    "Sonya?"
    "Thirteen."
    "Meredith?"
    "Almost thirteen. What does that have to do with anything?"
    Her mother got up and began to take eggs out of the refrigerator. She was still grinning. "I'd forgotten. How can I be a mother and forget something so important?"
    "
What,
Mom? I hate it when you act mysterious."
    "It's something that happens around the time you become thirteen. It happened to
me.
I had a much worse case than you do; how can I have forgotten that? My mother and grandmother took me to New York City for the day when I was thirteen, and I wanted to die, I was so embarrassed. My mother had this coat with a fur collar, and it looked as if she had some kind of animal wrapped around her neck; it was so disgusting. And my grandmother wore a wig, and had a Russian accent. I walked as far away from them as I could, so that I could pretend they were strangers."
    "I don't know what you're talking about. People's mothers change and become disgusting when people are thirteen?"
    "Nope. The mothers stay the same, but the thirteen-year-olds change, and the mothers
seem
disgusting."
    "It happens to everybody?"
    "I'm sure of it. I bet anything that in Alaska, thirteen-year-old Eskimo girls get together and talk about how weird their mothers are. In China. Africa. Everywhere."
    "Why? Why does it happen?"
    Anastasia's mother was whisking the eggs together in a bowl. "Gosh, I don't really know. I bet it's hormones. When people begin to mature physically, all those hormones start rushing around, or something."
    "Well," said Anastasia angrily, "they ought to
warn
you. All those dumb books they give you to read, about getting your period and stuff. That's just
normal
stuff. Why don't they warn you about the
abnormal
stuff, like you'll start to hate your mother?"
    "You know what? I think they do. Wasn't there a chapter in that book you had? A chapter called 'Emotional Changes' or something like that?"
    Anastasia groaned. "Yeah," she acknowledged. "But I didn't read it, because it looked boring. The whole
book
was boring, but that chapter looked like the most boring of all, except maybe for the one called 'Personal Hygiene.' So I didn't even read it. And now it turns out that the most important stuff was in there."
    "Well," said her mother, "reading it probably wouldn't have helped much, because you would still feel that way anyway. You'd still hate me," she said cheerfully, and began chopping a green pepper.
    Anastasia stared at the floor. She was consumed with gloom. Completely consumed. "What can I do about it?" she asked. "Is there a cure?"
    "Time. Wait it out. In the meantime, sweets, would you go get Sam