The Midnights by Sarah Nicole Smetana

Author:Sarah Nicole Smetana
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

ON A BRIGHT, hazy morning a few days before New Year’s, I decided it was finally time to broach the subject of the party with my mother. I headed out to the garden bordering the stables, where I found her knee-deep in a rebellion of very tall, very resilient weeds. Her face was partially veiled, sandy hair spilling across her cheek, and for one sharp moment, I thought I glimpsed the girl from the old Spades photograph: mysterious and wispy with motion, features just barely captured beneath the spotlight of the sun. Then she turned to look up at me.

Though the gleam of her beauty remained, she was just my mother again. My mother dressed, beyond all logic, in old khakis and a safari hat. A laugh coughed from the back of my throat.

“What?” she asked.

“You look like Indiana Jones,” I said.

“It’s all I could find.” She examined her attire with dismay before she also began laughing. “Wait. Doesn’t Indiana Jones always carry a whip?” She patted her pockets, her hips. “See? No whip.”

“Still. You look pretty ridiculous.”

She pointed her trowel at me. “Keep that up and I’ll start driving you to school like this.”

I pretended to zip my lips. A smile remained on my mother’s face as she stooped back down to assess the insurgence.

“How’s your study group going?” she asked.

“Good,” I said. “They really helped me understand Portrait of the Artist. I think I’ll nail the midterm.”

“I remember reading that book. I was probably your age. Maybe even in the same class. I thought it incredibly empowering, but at the same time, incredibly tragic.”

This was such a simple statement, and yet it surprised me. I knew my mother was smart, always able to solve a problem, put food on our table, keep the electricity humming. But her literary history consisted mostly of People magazine and the occasional pick from Oprah’s book club. I had only finished reading Portrait a few days prior, and I’d needed to consult CliffsNotes before I figured out how the story made me feel—let alone make sense of what actually happened.

“Such a lonely life,” my mother continued.

“Yeah,” I said, picking a feathery dandelion head from a weed near my feet.

She nodded, apparently pleased that we had the same reaction.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if it would be okay for me to go to a party on New Year’s Eve with my friend Lynn. I met her at school.” Hesitating, I slid my fingers up the stem of the flower, releasing the fluffy seeds to the wind. “She’s in my class with Mr. Tipton.”

My mother stopped at the mention of his name, a fleeting pause that would have gone unnoticed by anyone other than me. “That seems fine. Will there be a chaperone?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, and I suppose that was true enough.

“Well, if there’s a chaperone, then you can go.”

“Can I sleep over at her house after?”

At this request, my mother stood up again. “You haven’t slept over at anyone’s house since you were a little girl.

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