Page 57 of Clueless
“Knitting circle this evening,” she said, pouring two glasses of lemonade from the fridge.“We’re making hats for premature babies and donating them to local hospitals.”
“That’s nice.”Wait until she found out she was going to be a nana, after years of harassing me and Codie about giving her grandbabies.She’d be over the moon.
I claimed my turkey on rye before passing over Mama’s corned beef sandwich.
“What’s new with you?”she looked at me over the rim of her silver-framed glasses.“I’ve heard rumors.”
Oh, no.
The friends she’d made through her social groups loved to gossip, which meant they spent more time on social media than any women their age should.
“What kind of rumors?”I asked, taking a big bite of my sandwich, in case I needed to take my sweet time chewing while I came up with a plausible reason for not telling her about my new boyfriend.
She narrowed her eyes.“I think you know.”
Mama had used this tactic since we were little girls.She always pretended to know more than she did so we would confess, and she would get the scoop on whatever was going on in our lives.
“No, I really don’t,” I said, when I couldn’t pretend to be chewing any longer.
She reached for her phone on the table and pulled up the picture I’d taken of me and Taz.I should have known one of her nosy friends would be stalking me on social media and report back to her.Mama claimed social media was a waste of time, but I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t following us using a handle we’d never guess.
“Who is this, Grace?”
I took another bite of my sandwich, trying to find the words to tread lightly, while maintaining my right to privacy.“Someone I’ve been seeing.”
I didn’t think I should tell Mama that Taz was touring with her son-in-law.That would give her the ammunition she needed to do more digging and find out about his past before I was ready to tell her.
“How did you meet him?What does he do?”
These were standard questions when she found out I was seeing someone new, but for the first time I didn’t know how the hell to answer.I wasn’t ashamed of Taz or his past, but I didn’t want my mama judging him even before she met him, which she would do if she found out he’d done time.
“I met him at…”
Ugh, there was no way to avoid telling her.If she knew he was a friend of Mav’s, it would only take a few minutes of online searching to find out he was a musician and they were on the road together.Since Taz had been open about his past with reporters, it was a matter of public record, so to speak.
“Well?Why are you being so secretive?What’s wrong with this guy?”
“He has a past, Mama.Just like we all do.”I sighed.“But his may be a little more colorful than most.”I figured I may as well lead with the bad stuff, get that out of the way, so I could start building him up for the things he was accomplishing in his life now.
“Colorful?”she snapped.“What does that mean?”
There was no easy way to break this to her, so I just had to give it to her straight.“Taz was in prison for twelve years.”
She gasped before setting her sandwich down and clutching her chest.“You’re not serious.”
I continued eating, pretending I hadn’t just dropped a bombshell.
“What did he do?”
“He was a stupid kid.He got thrown out of his house as a teenager, so he got mixed up with gangs, which led to drugs.”
She dropped her head into her hands, moaning dramatically.“Oh, I never imagined my baby would get mixed up with acriminal.How did I let this happen?”
Mama liked to pretend I was still sixteen years old and she had some control over the friends or boyfriends I chose.“That’s who Taz was, Mama.It’s not who he is.”
She was indignant when she said, “Once a criminal, always a criminal.”
I tried hard not to roll my eyes, but she didn’t make it easy.“Not true.He’s paid his debt to society and learned from his mistakes.He was a kid when he was tried and convicted of those crimes.Only nineteen.He’s a grown man now.”
