The Land of Mango Sunsets by Dorothea Benton Frank

Author:Dorothea Benton Frank
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

THE MIGRATION BEGINS

I was on the treadmill, thinking that walking to nowhere was a little bit stupid but that it did give me a chance to muse. Earlier that morning, Liz had put herself in a cab and gone to her appointment with the plastic surgeon. I was glad that she felt well enough to go on her own, but I encouraged her to leave her things in my apartment, as the surgery she was facing would mean more painkillers and recovery time. Meanwhile, I was walking to nowhere hoping to speed up my metabolism, shed a few lbs, and gain slimmer thighs.

I suppose I would have to admit that my reluctance to branch outside my tiny circle of people in my life had been passed on to Dan, my other son. Sometimes it seemed like he had all but disowned us. If I didn’t receive regular Mother’s Day cards and birthday cards, I would’ve thought it was true. But now that we had a wedding on the horizon, he was going to have to talk to me. Someone had to reopen the lines of communication and apparently the only way that would happen was if I picked up the phone and used it. Waiting for him to call was as bad as waiting for a soufflé to rise, not that I had ever had any luck with soufflés. So I resolved that I would call him as soon as my thirty minutes on the dang fool contraption had elapsed. As always, Miss Josie was right. It was up to me to keep my family together.

I still owed Kevin the two hundred dollars for the idiotic machine and reminded myself to write him a check. Gosh, there was so much to do. I still had not called Mother to tell her about all the craziness of the past week or so, nor had I discussed with her the fact that Charlie and Priscilla had decided to tie the knot. I wondered if Charlie had called her and then decided I would have heard from Mother if he had. I checked my watch. I still had eleven minutes left.

I would call Miss Josie myself, give her all the news, and ask ever so cleverly if she had seen or heard anything about Manny. How could I pose the question? So, how’s Harrison? How’s his stupid friend who never called me? No, that wouldn’t do. How about Gosh, I sure had a great time when I was last down there with that guy, what’s his name? That was better to be sure. I had a lot to learn about playing it cool. I glanced at my wristwatch again. Six minutes of torture left to go.

I had promised Liz to take her to Sullivans Island, and if I wanted the advance discount price on the airline tickets, I was going to have to plan it. Obviously, I needed to discuss that with Mother, too. I added that to the phone-call agenda.

Maybe the treadmill wasn’t so bad after all.

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