Me for You by Lolly Winston

Author:Lolly Winston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gallery Books

15

Bee was upstairs still sleeping and Rudy was downstairs playing the radio quietly, a bit irritated by the morning guy and his sanctimonious announcing—as though only he knew a nocturne from a mazurka. Rudy smelled oatmeal, but he wasn’t making oatmeal.

Weekdays he cooked the breakfast she liked most, but rarely had time to finish before setting off to work. Two soft-boiled eggs with buttered whole-wheat toast. First he put the eggs on, and then popped down the toast. He buttered and cut one slice into strips, then squares, placing them beneath the eggs (that way you got a bite of toast with each bite of egg); the other he cut in half and arranged on the edges of the plate. His mother had always done this for him and he considered it an act of love. Rudy’s menu varied on weekends. Blueberry or apple pancakes. Real bacon. Heart attack.

He’d tried fixing made-to-order eggs for CeCe starting in junior high, but that girl was a picky eater—the opposite of low-maintenance Bee. Sometimes Rudy even wished his wife were a tougher customer, but boy, did she always appreciate the detail that went into preparing a meal, or even a snack!

Look at this! she’d exclaim when Rudy laid a plate before her. It’s lovely. Yum, she’d muster as she ate, and ohhh.

CeCe viewed food as utilitarian. Meals were calculations of protein and calories that would keep her going through field hockey or a calculus exam without putting on weight. They were not to be enjoyed. Bee and Rudy’s friends dealt with teens who would not buckle down and get serious about their studies or curfews or chores, and so the couple shied away from worrying aloud over their frighteningly diligent daughter. How unkind it would be to share with friends that they didn’t think their daughter was a fun babysitter, or lighthearted party guest. (Those kids would not do their homework; CeCe would come home complaining about her babysitting charges: They’d wanted to make sundaes!) At this particular description of a Saturday night with the Wilson kids, Bee had had to hide behind the hall closet door, stuffing the corner of a mitten in her mouth to stop from laughing.

“I’m so sorry,” Bee confessed, lamenting her parenting skills. “I think I gave birth to a forty-year-old and I’m terrible at this.” Rudy hugged his wife until she promised that she believed she was a good, kind mother.

“It’s not enough to get a 4.0,” CeCe said, scoffing at her father’s praise of her report card. Apparently you needed to get better than that these days, because so many kids were acing their AP classes—with A pluses.

“Darling, I promise you, you will be happy wherever you go to school, and you are going to have some great schools to choose from,” Rudy insisted encouragingly, trying not to show his blooming concern that CeCe might collapse into a breakdown before she even got to write her first college application essay. What with her field hockey, ski club, French club, organized beach cleanups.

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