Tunnel Vision Read Free

lending a shoulder to cry on or an ear to talk to, but Betty had been growing distrustful of what was starting to feel like the moms’ good cop/bad cop routine.
    “My day was boring as usual,” said Betty. “My paper sucks.”
    “I doubt that,” said Andrea as Ophelia set a plate before her, and then sat at the table at her own spot.
    “What am I missing?” Ophelia asked.
    “Betty was just telling me that she was bored. Now, why do you suppose that might be?”
    Betty rolled her eyes as the two older women exchanged a glance and Ophelia replied, “I can hazard a guess. Betty, would you like to talk about any recently revoked privileges?”
    “Not particularly,” said Betty. “Unless you just want me to say again that I’m sorry, in which case I’d love to.”
    Ophelia sighed and shook her head, and Andrea said, “Not going to be that easy, I’m afraid.” Here it came again. “You showed a serious lack of judgment, Betty, and the worst part is that we know that you know better. Neither of us is even sure what to do at this point, to be honest. This behavior just doesn’t even make any sense.” Sermon apparently concluded, Andrea plucked a piece of chicken from her plate and popped it into her mouth, then smiled at Ophelia. “This is great, by the way. Did you get any calls?”
    “Thank you and not yet,” said Ophelia, while Betty suppressed another eye roll. Her mothers’ jobs could be so fucking important sometimes that it was almost nauseating.
    As Betty poked at her food—the chicken was, par for the course, a little dry—Ophelia said, “I’m sure we’ll get some contact soon, and even if we don’t it’s not the end of the world.”
    Andrea nodded in sympathy, and Betty stared at them like they were a pair of aliens. She loved her moms deeply, but this sort of drama over nothing was enough to make her crazy. Other than the romantic risk they’d taken twenty years earlier, had the two of them ever risked anything? After all, the concern about the gallery was meaningless. Both of them knew the gap in scheduling three months in the future would work itself out, and the worst that could happen would be if they had to give a bunch of self-important artists from a private school a chance to display their crappy paintings and sculptures at one of Grand Rapids’ more prestigious galleries.
    “I think the more important subject is Betty,” said Ophelia in between bites of food. “Both of us have a lot going on with work, I know, but it appears as if our daughter might need more attention from us.”
    This time Betty really did roll her eyes, and when she looked back at her mothers they were staring her down. Andrea’s eyes were pinched and angry, but poor Ophelia just looked hurt. Andrea was a battler, but beating up on Ophy just felt like some sick kind of matricide. Betty blushed at the sight of her.
    “I’m not trying to be an asshole, seriously,” she told them. “You guys are acting like I was really going to send that idiot a picture of my tits, and—”
    “You sent him a picture of yourself in a bikini,” said Andrea coolly. “There is nothing funny about that, Betty. Sexism and gender roles aren’t going to go anywhere, at least not in our lifetimes, but there’s no need to play into stereotypes. By sending Jake that picture, even if it wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for, you’re forgetting how you were raised.”
    “But—” sputtered Betty, but her response was waved off by the waving finger of Andrea.
    “But nothing. You knew exactly what you were doing. We’ve discussed this, what? A thousand times? Pictures like that, texts, e-mails, they don’t go away. Everything you put out there can be used against you, make you look like some piece of street trash when you’re just a sweet little girl that got in over her head with a boy. You know better, Betty. That’s the problem, not that you talk to Jake or write him mash notes, but that you know better and that