Celia at 39 by Jason Pomerance

Author:Jason Pomerance
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, women's fiction, humorous fiction, contemporary
Publisher: Writing Bloc CO OP
Published: 2019-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Celia hired the one local cab (no Uber or Lyft in Hodges Creek. Not yet, anyway). This was an ancient dented Chevy Impala, which was owned and driven, rather recklessly it turned out, by a suddenly chatty Miss Nedra, with her dachshund riding shotgun, so Celia and her mother had to sit in back where the floor was littered with crumpled 3 Musketeers wrappers and crushed cans of Yoohoo. The cab, which also carried the odd, competing odors of wet dog and menthol cough drops, was taking them into Blairsville because Celia had to return all the clothes her mother had purchased. The slacks, for instance, practically slid off her waist and were a good three inches too long. The blouses were just, well, wrong. Daisy had selected one in gingham that made Celia look like somebody’s grandmother. The other top was all lace and frills with a big bow at the neck. Worse was that both hung on her like old sacks. An exasperated Celia had protested, “Did you really think I was going to wear these?” and “How big do you think I am, mother?”

“Well, I just wanted to be sure they would fit, dear. I can always alter them, of course. And as for the blouses, I think they’re adorable.”

Celia knew better than to argue. She and her mother had been having fights like this for as long as she could remember, her mom bringing home outfits for her and her sisters and Celia and Bernadette and Rosalie rolling their eyes or, worse, throwing tantrums and refusing to wear them until their grumbling father would tell them all to pipe down already and work it out. Would the situation ever change, Celia sometimes wondered, or was this another of those annoying looping arguments that mothers and daughters would have for eternity?

The boutique – somewhat funky for a small, conservative town in the South – didn’t have the most extensive selection, but Celia managed to find a pair of jeans that fit through the hips and tapered slightly at the ankles, and a couple of cute simple tops, a pink scoop-neck, and another in a jazzy shade of red.

Done with clothes shopping, they headed back to Hodges Creek, settling in to one of the weathered red booths at Belle’s for lunch. They ordered cheeseburgers and Cherry Cokes, and while they were waiting for the food, Celia said, “Something’s been bothering me.” She thought she detected an eye-roll from her mother, but pushed on. “Why did you and Daddy always refer to me as ‘the middle one’?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Daisy.

“I was telling Penelope a bedtime story a couple of days ago, and I remembered this one Daddy used to tell me and Rosalie and Bernadette. In the story, we were all princesses, and you were the Queen.”

“Wait,” Daisy interjected, “I was the Queen?”

“Yes.”

“Ha!”

“Why is that funny?”

“Well, I can’t remember the last time your father treated me like a queen. Maybe when we were first dating, I guess.

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