Dancing Hours Read Free Page B

dry.  Clothes last longer that way.” She said gruffly.
     
    David didn’t respond.  This was clearly not the first time they’d had that discussion .  My mother asked if that would be okay with me and walked out to the porch to giv e David a look over as if she might use her mom-radar to see if he was a rapist or serial killer.  Apparently the mom- dar stayed silent so she agreed.
     
    Jessica and I spent an hour playing Tag and hide and seek in the backyard.  We even convinced David to play a few rounds, but he acted a lot like an old man in young skin.  When Jessica started to get cranky, David decided to take me home.  It wasn’t a long drive, but Jessica fell asleep in the back of the car before we got there.
     
    David thanked me for playing with Jessica and admitted she doesn’t get enough time with kids her own age.  I told him about an indoor park at the mall in Greenville.  He wasn’t very talkative and I guessed that he was tired.  I didn’t want to pry about his mother seeming distant with Jessica, or to seem too eager to know about Noah so we left it at that. 
     
     
     
    4
     
    Trixie had been perfectly polite to my mother – complimented her dress and acted like any normal person seeing an old friend.  My mom acted strange ly , though , and I could tell there was some subtext under the exchange when they saw each other .  Exactly what, I couldn’t tell.  I had always imagined I knew my mother pretty well.  She told me almost everything in her life and, while I knew her li fe didn’t begin when I was born, I thought she’d told me the important things.  Maybe this wasn’t very important, but I would ask later. 
     
    I waited until she had settled down into her favorite chair when I thought she’d have trouble avoiding the question.
     
    “So, what was going on between you and M r s. Bastion ?”
     
    She looked uncomfortable at the question.  “What do you mean?”  So she wanted to play hard to get.  I wasn’t going to let her evade me.
     
    “I mean you were acting really strange.  You don’t like her do you?”  My mom sighed deeply, opened her mouth to say something then stopped and started again.  “We knew each other a long time ago.  We were different people then.  It’ s just… sometimes it’s hard to forget the way people treated you when you’re young.” She explained.
     
    “What do you mean?”
     
    “What I mean is that it’s between me and Trixie and it’s over and done with.”
     
    I t was hard to imagine my mother as a young girl – my age.  I’d seen pictures, of course, but they hardly looked like the woman who sat next to me, who made me breakfast, checked my homework and slept in a chair next to my bed when I was sick as a kid.  She was a mom .   I never really thought about what she was before being a mom.  She was a nice person and I had a good idea she wouldn’t tell me anything else about Trixie .  I’d ask my dad.  
     
    Being an only child had it’s down sides.  It meant there were no other kids in the house taking the parental attention away from me.  I couldn’t blame a brother or sister for breaking my mother’s favorite vase or for putting dish soap in the washing machine to see what would happen.  It also made navigating family politics a one man job.  I found a quiet moment when my mom was busy in the laundry room and my dad was in a good mood because his basketball team won their game the night before.  He was reading the paper, drinking coffee and nibbling at some pastries mom had brought home.
     
    “Dad?” I started.
     
    “Hmm.” He muttered absentmindedly.
     
    “How come mom doesn’t like that lady Trixie that just got into town?” I asked as innocently as I could.
     
    He folded down the corner of his paper and looked at me over the rim of his glasses with an amused look.  “Sounds like a question you should ask your mother.” He said.
     
    I pretended to scratch at a mosquito bit e on my