Chapter 12
Ever since the party, I’ve been forced to come home right after school—no exceptions.
The day after, Mom told me I was grounded until she felt like I had actually learned something.
I didn’t bother asking how she would know; I just vowed to do whatever she said.
But I wonder what this means for the carnival.
Deanna made it sound so fun, and I really want to go.
Kayla feels bad for convincing me to go to the party and has been hanging out with me at home more often. It hits me that she really doesn’t know the same version of my mom that I do. She thought things were just going to blow over.
Not so much.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in my room doing homework when I hear a loud crash downstairs. My mom is the only other person home.
“Mom?” I call out. “Are you okay?” No response.
I sigh and get up, making my way to the top of the staircase. Listening closer, I hear my mom cursing under her breath. I walk down the steps to find her leaning against the fridge with her hands on her hips, a pile of steel bowls scattered at her feet. I bend down to pick them up.
“No, leave them. I’ll get them,” she says.
“I got them,” I say, grabbing the bowls before she can. I’ve been trying to show her that I am helpful and responsible, despite what she may think.
“Just put them in the sink and I’ll wash them,” she says.
“I got it, Mom. What’s wrong?” I ask.
She sighs and takes a seat at the counter, pushing Breakfast at Tiffany’s and her iPad aside so she can put her head down.
“Oh right, you have that book club today. Are you hosting?” I glance around the empty kitchen.
She groans into the countertop, and I take that as a yes.
Kayla told me that some of the moms in the neighborhood started a book club a while back as an excuse to drink wine and get away from their kids.
They host at each other’s houses and take turns selecting books they don’t really read.
It’s supposed to be fun, but by the looks of my mom right now, it doesn’t seem all that light and carefree.
“The caterer canceled, and I didn’t have enough time to place a new order before I left the hospital,” she says, lifting her head. She looks like a disappointed kid.
I haven’t seen her this nervous maybe ever.
Most of my mom’s friends in Lorial were her coworkers, other nurses she naturally spent all her time with.
They weren’t the book club crowd—their idea of fun was coming over to drink margaritas and watch The Real Housewives.
They laughed loudly and gossiped too much, but I’m pretty sure my mom would rather be doing that right now.
“What was the order? Can we make it?” I ask.
“I wish, but we don’t have time even if we wanted to.” Her phone rings and I see Travis’s name light up the screen.
“Hi, baby. It’s all right, you couldn’t know. I’m probably just going to cancel,” she says. My mom “mmhmm”s in response to whatever he’s saying, then tells him that I’m here with her. They exchange “I love you”s before hanging up.
“Sorry, honey. What did you ask me? Oh, what did I order?” She grabs her iPad and taps the screen. A page with the word CANCELED in big red letters appears and she gets annoyed all over again.
“I ordered crustless tea sandwiches, blueberry scones, and these delicious lemon sugar cookies frosted Tiffany blue for a souvenir,” she says, pointing to the book.
“I should call everyone now and tell them it’s off.
Hopefully two hours is enough time for people to make other plans,” she adds with a grimace.
“No! Let’s make something,” I insist. My mom might be the only parent in the book club who works and doesn’t have help, so I want her to show that she can do it all. I know she can.
“Jasmine, please,” she says. “It’s too late. What would we even make?”
I pull open the fridge and freezer. “Breakfast is the theme, right?”
“It was, yes,” she says cautiously, clearly wondering where I’m going with this.
“Okay, well, look.” I pull out two big boxes of waffles and push them toward her on the counter. She pushes them back. I add Cool Whip, strawberries, jam, and maple syrup. “And these!” I say with more excitement than I anticipated.
She looks confused.
“We can still make tea sandwiches,” I say.
“Jasmine, I—”
“Wait, hold on,” I insist, typing the ingredients into the search bar on TikTok. I choose the first video of a lady silently making strawberry shortcake sandwiches and show it to my mom. “Look, these are perfect.”
She squints at the screen. “That looks very sweet … and unhealthy,” she says, leaning on the counter.
“And delicious,” I say. Mom smiles and I continue. “Come on, it’s something. You used to love making stuff up.”
“We have more fruit too, so we can make a tray for the boring, healthy people,” I say, looking at her for a sign of laughter. She doesn’t laugh, but I see a hint of a smile growing a little bigger.
“This might be a really bad idea, Jasmine,” she says, picking up the box of waffles.
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. “But we’re not the giving up type, right?”
My mom grabs my shoulder and pulls me in for a hug. “No, Jasmine Cooper, we sure are not. Thank you for the reminder.”
I linger in her arms for a bit, trying to remember the last time we had a moment like this. It doesn’t come to me right away and I imagine that’s because it’s been so long.
She sets a timer on her phone and asks Siri to play some jazz. I watch her mood shift as she places the waffles on a baking tray. “Now start that over and get to cutting up those strawberries. I’ve got a book club to host.”
The doorbell rings just as we’re putting the last waffle top on our strawberry shortcake–ish sandwiches. My mom shoots me a nervous look.
“Got it!” Kayla shouts from the top of the stairs. She got home a few minutes ago.
“I’ll get it, Kayla,” my mom calls back.
“I’ll finish setting the table, Mom,” I say, placing the last sandwich on the crystal platter.
“Thanks, honey. Just try not to be offended if no one eats any,” she says with genuine concern before leaving the kitchen. I hope she takes her own advice, since it sounds like that would bother her more than it would me.
Kayla bounces in as I set the platter on the sunroom table. “Ohh, this looks so cool,” she says, pointing to the centerpiece of Tiffany boxes.
My mom saved them from gifts Travis gave her and was happy they could come in handy. On either side, she’s placed vases of white roses she bought yesterday at the caterer’s request.
“She’s worried people are gonna hate the food,” I say. Everything is so serious here, like people with money are allergic to imagination. My mom would probably be the queen of Lorial if she made something like this for a girls’ night.
“They hate everything,” Kayla says, shrugging it off and straightening out a chair on the other side of the table.
I set the sandwiches to the side and pull the platter of cut fruit up to the front.
Just as Kayla heads back upstairs, my mom leads a line of people through the kitchen.
I was so focused on helping out that I forgot this would be my first time meeting some of them.
I recognize Alice’s mom from the family pictures hanging in their hallways.
She is a lot taller than my mom and looks even more like her daughter in person.
“Ahh, there’s the sister that Alice keeps going on about. Hi there,” Alice’s mom says as soon as she walks in.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” I say politely.
“And so well-behaved.” She nods at my mom in approval. My mom smiles.
Kenny’s mom comes in next. “Hi again!”
Deanna’s mom walks in with two other women and hands a bag to my mom.
“What is this, Dianne?” my mom asks, surprised.
“A gift for the host,” Dianne says. “Open it later.”
My mom beams, and I’m happy she’s finally relaxing. “You’re free now,” she jokes, noticing my discomfort.
I get up quickly to leave the room and wave to everyone. Before I go, my mom pulls me into the kitchen.
“Jasmine, thank you. This was smart, and sweet. I really appreciate it.” She smiles at me, and I feel like she can see me. Like she can feel me trying.
“Yeah, no biggie.”
“It is, though. We’ve had a rough go of it so far,” she says, pushing a loose curl behind my ear. “I’m happy you’re not letting that get in the way of being the sweetheart you are.”
“You still think I’m a sweetheart? Even after—”
“You’re my kid. If I’m a sweetheart, then so are you,” she laughs.
I decide to push it a little bit. “Do sweethearts ground their kids for being kids?”
“Well, this one did.”
I make a face and she pushes my arm playfully. Even if she can only acknowledge it through a joke, it’s nice to know she recognizes that I’m not a bad kid. She gets that, at the end of the day, I’m just a teenage girl trying to live my life. It feels like we are moving forward, little by little.
“Let’s get some driving practice in this weekend. You’ve earned it.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
As my mom heads back to her party, my eye catches on the calendar she keeps on the fridge. I can’t help but think of Amari’s release date, and if she ever made it.
I may be moving toward my future, but my past is never far behind.