“Weren’t you supposed to celebrate the interview and end of exams with Kassie? She wasn’t over last night.” She pulls my legs on her lap, settling next to me on the couch.
“She was with Ollie. Where else?” I mumble.
I can read her look. She’s about to launch into the same speech she’s given me since ninth grade—about how I need to be honest with Kassie that it hurts my feelings when she ditches me. “You know that baby photo of you in those crocheted overalls?”
I crinkle my forehead, unsure what this has to do with Kassie. “The ones that make me look like I have a saggy butt?”
“Georgia made those as a gift for my baby shower,” she says, giving me an affectionate nudge in the ribs.
“Who’s Georgia?”
“Exactly. Georgia was my best friend. All through school. We were attached at the hip, like you and Kassie. Grandma used to say she was her second daughter because she basically lived at my house.”
“How come I’ve never heard of her?” Mom has a small circle of girlfriends she gets wine-drunk with at monthly book club, and none of them are named Georgia.
“Because we’re not friends anymore,” she says simply.
“What happened?” I frown, running down the list of grisly potential best friend betrayals.
She drums her fingers over my legs, eyes misty. “We grew apart. After college, she went backpacking around the world. I moved to Maplewood, married your dad, had you. We talked on the phone every single day for a while. Then it was once a week, once a month, and then we started dodging each other’s calls . . . only calling back because we felt obligated to, you know?”
“Obligated? But wasn’t she your best friend?”
“She was. There was no bad blood. No fight. No real reason why we stopped talking. I guess we just ended up living two completely different lives that no longer intersected.” Mom lets out a soft chuckle. “Actually, we’re not even friends on Facebook anymore.”
“No one uses Facebook anymore, Mom.” I eye her warily, shaking my head. I know where she’s going with this. “And that won’t happen to me and Kassie.” We’re supposed to be maid of honor at each other’s weddings and godmothers to our future children.
Mom sighs and gives me a weak smile. “I’m not saying you and Kassie won’t be best friends in twenty years. But friendships can change. Sometimes people drift apart. That’s just life. It doesn’t make it any less painful, though.”
I swat her words away like pesky houseflies. I don’t mean to be a brat, but Mom is out to lunch. I can’t imagine a reality where Kassie isn’t blowing up my phone, asking how hot she looks on a scale of her grandma to Kylie Jenner in certain outfits, or whether she’s wearing too much bronzer. And then there’re the serious texts when she vents about how much she wishes her parents would just divorce already, because they’re both checked out.
Mom can tell I’m over the conversation and starts scrolling on her cracked iPhone. “Want to order pizza for dinner tonight?”
“We ordered pizza last week,” I remind her.
It’s been just Mom and me for years now. We aren’t a family who breaks bread at the table every night, rehashing our days. We usually eat on the couch. Ever since Dad left, Mom thinks sitting at our six-person dining table, just the two of us, is “depressing.” She’s probably right. I have vivid memories of sitting at the table with Dad. At the beginning of each meal, he’d ask what I learned in school that day. Mouth full, I’d jump at the opportunity to show off all my newfound knowledge, reciting facts from every subject. Bonus if I had a good grade to report. Dinner was when Dad and I bonded most, probably because he’d spend most of his evenings working. Sitting at the dining table across from his empty seat just feels . . . wrong, like a stark reminder of what I no longer have.
Mom props her bare feet on the table. “What about Subway? Oh, before I forget—I got a voice mail last night.”
“A voice mail? From who?”
“Your dad.”
My stomach plummets. “Oh.” That’s strange. Dad never calls just to talk. He prefers to text intermittently, only asking about school, as though my grades are the only thing he cares about. We only have formal phone calls on Christmas and my birthday, which happen to fall within a month of each other.
“He left a rambling voice mail. Asked me to ask you to give him a call, if you want.” Mom has that forced neutral tone she uses when she doesn’t want to persuade me either way.