Sweet Virginia by Kepnes Caroline

Author:Kepnes, Caroline [Kepnes, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Science Fiction, Contemporary, feminism, Adult
ISBN: 9781542020633
Amazon: B08DRCHV47
Goodreads: 55054553
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2020-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

For the rest of the day, Mommy won’t shut up about the mix-up at the pharmacy, and she really will put Shelby in an early grave. And what about the Baba? It can’t be good for him, being exposed to Mommy’s paranoia—Don’t open that email! Don’t do that DNA testing in the mail! Don’t eat fake sugar!—day in, day out.

“I don’t like this,” Mommy says, blowing a kiss to the Baba in the rearview mirror. “You can’t trust those big chain stores. They take all our information and sell it. It’s true. I saw it on 60 Minutes. For all you know, your identity has been stolen. Every year, more and more women disappear into thin air. Poof. A lot of the time, it starts like this. They wipe them out. You need to be on top of things. You need to be a mother and stop obsessing over . . . These magazines don’t even pay you, Shelby. When’s the last time we went to the bank to deposit a check?”

“Mommy, please. I’m driving. And I get paid by direct deposit.”

Mommy huffs. “You give them your bank account number? Oh, Shelby, that’s not right. And didn’t you hear the man in there? He said you weren’t even in the system. These things don’t just happen.”

“It was an IT error. That’s it. Please calm down.” She makes a kissy face at Henry and imagines 555 smiling, impressed. What a good mommy. “Hi, Baba!”

“But you heard him, Shelby. He said you were erased. Someone stole it. I know it. I read about this. And look at you, not even worried.”

The Baba chews on his fingers, and Shelby pictures him in therapy, years from now, after some girl dumps him because of his “issues” with women. The therapist thinks she’s so smart as she explains that his problems date back to his childhood, raised by two women squabbling at all hours. His future is ruined already, because this is the key time in a child’s life, and Shelby snaps. “It’s not like that, Mommy. For the last time, it was just a computer error. Nothing more. It happens all the time. Please stop talking like it’s a conspiracy. Life is mostly just boring.”

Shelby realizes the person she’s really addressing is Shelby. She needs to get it through her thick head that 555 is an IT error. Nothing more. A glitch.

Mommy grips her purse, like Shelby’s driving is that scary. “Well, I don’t like it,” she says. “You need to call before some criminal empties your bank account. I’m telling you, more and more women . . . just gone. Poof. And it always starts with something like this. Always. And then the women disappear, too, just like their phone numbers.”

Shelby will drive this car into a fucking pole if Mommy won’t shut up and Shelby is driving too fast and the Baba is in the back, wiggling in his car seat, soaking up the tension. She brakes and he cries and she pulls into the parking lot of a convenience store.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.