The Careful Undressing of Love by Corey Ann Haydu

Author:Corey Ann Haydu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-12-05T15:47:45+00:00

17.

We are on display at Bistro the next night.

Mom’s wearing her short hair down instead of in a bun, and I’m housing an order of French fries and mayo. I don’t know the official street stance on mayo, but I know the stance on me and Mom.

We are bad.

Mom’s knees are showing, and I found out I don’t own a shirt that covers my collarbone.

It’s nine. Curfew is looming and Roger hasn’t arrived yet, but we’re waiting for him. I think we’re waiting for him and we’re waiting for ten o’clock and we’re waiting to see what will be done about us when we break more rules.

“You’ll love him,” Mom says, but I have no intention of feeling anything toward him at all.

Owen’s here, too. He’s nervous—playing with his napkin and picking at my fries and looking at his watch like he, too, wants us to be home on time. He has a hand on my thigh and I try to remember how good that used to feel. On our first date we went to the movies, and halfway through his hand found its way to that same spot and I could swear my leg was burning from the thrill of it. Even after he took his palm away I could still feel it there, for hours after.

But I’m already forgetting the way I thought I could feel about Owen on that dreamy Tuesday afternoon. That’s the difference, I guess, between love and wishing something was love: how long the remembering is.

“Couldn’t we have gone somewhere else?” I ask. Mom shrugs like she can’t imagine why I’d want to be anywhere else, but the answer is obvious. Angelika has walked by Bistro once already, and it doesn’t feel coincidental.

“This is our favorite place.” Mom says the words favorite place like she’s staking her claim.

“I’m starving,” Owen says.

“We’ll order the second Roger gets here,” Mom says.

Last night she removed the key from around her neck and told me it was about time I met the man she loves. She threw out her hairspray. “My hair’s short, I don’t need this,” she said to me or to no one. Now she smells like soap and cotton. We didn’t turn on our outside light before we walked to Bistro.

That is untrue: I turned on our outside light, like we do every evening as the sun starts to set—Angelika says lights help us find the right path. She says we have to combat the night. But on our way out Mom looked at the light—at the dusty glass of the fixture, at the row of lights all the way down the street, predictable, symmetrical, safe—and she flipped the switch to off.

“Waste of energy,” she said.

It’s dark now; everyone will notice.

We have been home at ten the last two nights, since the meeting, but tonight will be different.

Mom and I are about to be the first ones to break the curfew.

Reporters are coming by next weekend to talk to me, Delilah, Isla, and Charlotte. It has been decided the way everything is decided now: swiftly and without our input.

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