AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Oh, I don't know, how about mentioning all this yesterday?" She asked, and he bit back his retort.
"The car still would have broken down."
She glanced away from him, but after a few moments, she agreed to go along for the ride.
Which was how they'd ended up here—five hours into a three-hour drive (thanks to the murderous beach traffic) and bickering over the radio station.
For the millionth time, he turned the dial from her bubble gum pop music to a twangy, more down-home country tune, and she made a retching sound.
"Something wrong, princess?" he teased.
"This is God awful," she said then rolled down her window and stuck her arm into the warm, summer air.
He couldn't blame her. After sitting so long in the car, he would have done just about anything for some fresh air. Just the idea of getting away from the radio was beginning to sound like a treasure.
Though, to be fair, she'd surprised him in that regard, too. When they'd first gotten in the car, he'd expected her to tune into NPR and listen to the news and arts all the way there. He'd even turned the dial in anticipation, but just as quickly, she'd grabbed for it and started in on a local station's Madonna medley.
On another occasion, sitting there and watching her bop along to Lucky Star might have been enough to make him laugh.
But five hours into a three-hour trip…
She switched the dial again, and he let a low breath out his nose as he crossed over into the Fenwick town border.
"Almost there," he said, and she squirmed a little.
"Good. Stop at the first pharmacy. I have to use the bathroom."
"Can't you wait until we get to my place?" He asked.
She shook her head, and his stomach twisted. It was like her superpower was making everything more complicated than it needed to be.
"Look, look. A Walgreens." She pointed, and he fought the urge to let out a frustrated sigh as he pulled into the parking lot and waited for her to slide from the car.
"Be right back," she said.
"Hurry," he called, but it was already too late.
Agnes Reed, town gossip and head of the library, was tottering toward his car, her hand outstretched.
"Why, if you aren't a sight for sore eyes," she crooned. That was saying something, given Agnes's coke-bottle eyeglasses.
"Hello, Agnes."
"I was just going to give your mother a ring. She'll be so happy to hear you're in town."
"Oh, not for long, I'm just—"
"They're such good people, your parents. Proud of you. Always talking about that house of yours."
"That's kind," he said. “But really—"
"Lonely, though. Just the two of them with you as their only child. And you living away for so much of the year." She tsked.
This was what Agnes did. In fact, it was what all his mother's friends did. Unlike regular mothers, his never told him she missed him or wanted him to come home. She never made him feel guilty about how long it had been since the last time he'd visited or called.
No, she had an entire army of blue-hairs to call him up or stop him on the street just to do her dirty work, while she got to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about. She never pressured him to visit.
"I'll tell her you said hello when I stop by," he said, defeated.
