Veritas by Anne Laughlin

Author:Anne Laughlin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ! Yes
ISBN: 9781602821248
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2009-11-17T06:00:00+00:00

ChApteR eLeven

Beth finished washing the dinner dishes, her mother at her side wiping them down with a soggy dish towel and then rooting around Beth’s cabinets, looking for a place to put them.

Their conversation had been safely stalled on kitchen logistics for the past fifteen minutes, and what Beth guessed to be the normalcy of it struck her as not only unfamiliar but also strangely pleasing.

Moments such as this were rare growing up on the prostitution ranch, a term Beth used deliberately to conjure up an image of herds of whores, tended through their prime and then moved off the ranch to meet their fate. Beth never knew what happened to the women who quietly left the ranch, usually when they were closing in on thirty. Many of the women who worked at the ranch were putting themselves through college and graduate school, so their departures were celebrated. Others bided their time until the day they were called into Mae’s office and given a generous amount of notice that their work at the ranch was coming to an end. Beth rarely got to know any of them well, except for the few who became her babysitters. These were the young women who were not proving to be customer pleasers at the ranch but whom Mae did not have the heart to fire. They watched Beth while Mae tended to ranch business, and inevitably they left after several months. After having her heart broken several times, Beth learned to not grow close to her minders.

Mae continued her analysis of Beth’s kitchen. “Most people in this day and age have dishwashers. You’re really the only one I

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know who has a kitchen like this.” She was on her tippytoes, sliding a bowl onto a cabinet shelf.

“Like what?”

“Your appliances are ancient, your cabinets are horrible, and your countertops are not only Formica, but really old Formica.”

“The appliances work fine. There’s no reason to replace them.

And there’s no place for a dishwasher, even if I were to buy one.” Beth stood and looked at her kitchen, finding it perfectly satisfactory.

“You have no vision. What you should do is knock this wall out, tear everything down to the studs, and put in a new kitchen that opens up to your family room there. You’ll love it.” Mae swept her arm from side to side, painting a picture of a modern kitchen/great room filled with the latest appliances and finishes.

“You’re doing it again, Mother.”

“Doing what again?”

“Trying to control me. You’re already redecorating. You arrive here unannounced, which is a way of controlling me, because you know you’ll get your way. Am I supposed to throw my own mother out of my house?”

“Good Lord. Are you this way with your friends? Do you even have friends?”

Beth left the kitchen and headed to her room, with Mae close behind. As Beth pulled clothes out of her closet and started to change, Mae said, “Why don’t we open a bottle of wine and play Scrabble or something?”

“Normally, I’d love the opportunity to kick your ass in Scrabble, but I have to go somewhere.

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