Role Playing(6)

“I honestly didn’t think you’d pick up,” she admitted sheepishly. “I was going to leave a message.”

“You could’ve texted me.”

“I hate texting,” she answered, “and you know that.”

He snickered. “Okay, boomer.”

She huffed, but it was all for show. Then, suddenly, she froze as a thought hit her. “Oh, shit. Is your roomie there? Other people? Am I totally embarrassing you or seeming like one of those helicopter parents or making you look like some freak with mommy issues?”

He burst out laughing, even though that wasn’t her purpose at all. “You’re fine. My roomie went to a party, or to rush something, I don’t remember.”

Maggie fought her instinctive recoiling from the term “rush.” She didn’t understand Greek life at all, but then, she hadn’t rushed in her brief college experience in Berkeley. But maybe it was a good thing? Something Kit ought to pursue? “Why didn’t you go too?”

“Other than the fact that I wasn’t asked?” Kit replied, with a wry tone. “I don’t think that I’m the frat type. And I didn’t feel like going to somewhere random on campus, like a café or something. And certainly not a party where I don’t know anybody.”

She bit her lip. She wouldn’t, either, but she’d at least managed to make friends in college—sort of. “Yeah, but you will,” she said. “Anybody seem nice in your classes? Or maybe in your dorm? It takes a while. Just, you know, say hi, be personable. Make a friend.”

“Do you even know me?” he asked, with a chuckle.

“You hung out with Harrison every chance you got,” she protested. “And you were the one who went up to him, not the other way around.”

“I was eight,” Kit said, his voice dry as the Sahara. “It was before I hit puberty and became emo and antisocial. He was grandfathered in before the cutoff.”

She got up, pacing the kitchen. The TV was still on in the background, some cooking show, but the sound was muted. “I just don’t want you to be lonely,” she admitted. “You’re my kid. And yeah, I know I can be . . . overprotective . . .”

She scowled when his laughter exploded through the phone speaker. “You think?”

“Hey, I’m trying!”

“I know, Mom,” Kit said. “I know this is hard for you. I appreciate everything you’ve done to help me get here. I don’t want you to think I don’t.”

He sounded so grown up, she thought. And hated what he’d gone through to sound this way.

“Besides, you can’t point fingers at me,” Kit pointed out. “It’s not like you’re Ms. Congeniality either. You’re more antisocial than I am.”

“I am not,” she lied.

“I will text Aunt Rosita, and she will back me up,” Kit scoffed.

“Aunt Rosita is proof that I’m social! She’s been my best friend since high school!”

“Yes, but she’s all the way in California, and you haven’t been back there in ages,” he countered. “Besides, calling her once a month or whatever hardly counts.”

Maggie scowled, even though he couldn’t see it. “I have other friends.”

“Your only other friend is someone you’ve never met, that you DM on Twitter, who for all you know is an octogenarian war criminal in hiding who happens to like Robotech as much as you do.”

“And is a Sagittarius,” Maggie tacked on. “Her Twitter name is Macross Sagittarius.”

“Ah, yes. Her zodiac sign helps,” Kit said sarcastically. “Mom, we’re a lot of things, but social we’re not.”

But he could be. It would be healthier if he was, ultimately—not like “big man on campus” or a party animal, but just having a support network.

She wanted to push the issue. She hated the idea of him isolated, feeling lost on that huge campus. Her brain conjured up images of him wandering like a stereotypical freshman in an eighties comedy or something, but with more disastrous effects . . . the guy who was the butt of jokes, the isolated, shy “loser.” He might not have had a lot of friends in high school, but the ones he had loved him and thought he was hysterical—which, when given the opportunity to warm up, he really was. He’d even dated, although she didn’t know how far that went, nor did she want to (beyond a painful talk about sex that had proved embarrassing and largely unnecessary, and her putting a box of condoms in his bathroom “just in case”). He was a slow starter, but very charismatic once you got past the Wall of Shy.

But that wasn’t something she could just tell him. And she also knew she was hearing her ex-husband’s words in her head.

You spoil him.

He needs to learn how to deal with things on his own.

He needs to toughen up, goddamn it.

If he’s going to cry like a baby because somebody tells him to stop fucking up, then we’re failing him.

You think I’m the only person that’s going to be hard on him?

She closed her eyes. Not now. She wasn’t going to walk down that toxic old memory path now.

“How did you do this week?” Kit asked. “What did you do?”

“Oh, you know. The usual,” Maggie said, with a wave of her hand. “Lots of work. I went grocery shopping. Texted Mac. Called you.”