Part 8 (2/2)
”We've become torpid. Moribund. Stagnant.”
”Oh, G.o.d. Is it contagious?”
”We're in a rut, Tressa. Your father and me. He's grown complacent. Disengaged. Apathetic.
Unfortunately, he refuses to acknowledge the fact.”
”I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary,” I said.
A low-key, middle of the road fellow, not p.r.o.ne to extremes, my pop is a ”come through for you” kind of guy who gets the job done without frills or fireworks. I should point out that my dad takes after his father rather than my grandma. Oh. You figured that out already? You're good.
”It's a progressive malady,” my mother said.
Huh?
”So what happened tonight to send you on a junk food binge?” I asked.
”Really, Tressa. Popcorn and chocolate do not const.i.tute a binge. You'd have to have alcohol and something like pizza to const.i.tute a binge.”
I shook my head. Seriously?
”To answer your question, I made a perfectly reasonable request of your father, and he refused to even consider it.”
”Request. What request?”
My mother waved a hand. ”That isn't important. It's your father's att.i.tude that is at issue.”
Now who was being slippery and evasive?
And who was dying to know just what ”perfectly reasonable request” Jean Turner had made?
You get three guesses, and your first two don't count.
”So, what do you plan to do about it?” I asked-not about to take sides in a parental dispute.
”I plan to sleep here, of course.”
Not the answer I expected. Or, welcomed.
”Come again.”
”I'm sleeping here.”
”You're sleeping here?”
”You have a spare bedroom.”
”Yes, I know. But, what about Dad? Won't he worry?”
”He'll likely never know I'm gone. Popcorn?” She held the bag out to me. ”It's movie theater b.u.t.ter.”
I took a handful.
”I'll grab us a diet soda,” I said, and got to my feet, still freaked out by my mom's odd behavior.
”Thank you, Tressa.”
I limped in the direction of the kitchen. The doorbell rang before I made it to the fridge. I frowned. What was this? Grand Central Station? I turned and headed back in the direction I'd come from.
”Open up. I'm getting eaten alive by 'skeeters!”
I stopped dead in my tracks. I knew that voice.
What I didn't know was what the person who belonged with that voice was doing on my front porch at this time of night.
Bam! Bam!
”Tressa! Open the door before these bloodsuckers get me!”
I bowed to the inevitable and opened the door.
My gammy stood on the porch. She wore a hot pink cotton nightie and baby blue fuzzy slippers. In one hand was a bottle of wine. And the other? I blinked. Was that...sticky rolls? A bright yellow taxi sat idling in my driveway.
”Uh, what's going on, Gram?”
”I'm moving back in. That's what's going on.” She patted my hand and walked past me and into the house. ”Pay the driver, would you, dear? I'm a little light.”
I stared after her, shaking my head to clear it.
I could see the sign now: Tressa's Twilight No Tell Motel: Questionable ambience. So-so cleanliness. But four-star female bonding opportunities.
Bring your own chocolate.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
”Consider this your prep talk, Turner.”
I sat across the table from my employer in the tiny break room that also served as conference room and client meeting room and decided what I needed was a ”pep” talk instead. Or ”pep” period. I'd tossed and turned on the sofa the night before stewing over my mom and dad. Then this morning I'd had to convince my gammy that just because Abigail Winegardner gave Joe a plate of sticky rolls for helping hang her ”lame” birdhouse, it didn't mean Joe was game for a little extra-marital bird-watching.
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