The Love Children by Marylin French Page B

joked about the owner of Monaghan’s, Varashimi Agni, who had two daughters named Jolly and Jett. Steve was doubled over laughing about Jolly and Jett, and I was laughing too and told him I knew someone who had a sister named Brie. I said maybe when I grew up and had a daughter I’d call her Cheddar.
    He said, “Or Jarlsberg!”
    And I said, “Or Bleu!”
    He exploded: he had a friend named Blue! At this point, we were both laughing so hard we had to pee, and he ran into Monaghan’s again, then I did. I knew we were both laughing off our nervousness from seeing the cops. A vision had flashed through my mind of being arrested by those robots in plastic helmets, booked, lined up against a wall, shot. For a moment, it had seemed possible.
    We had another joint and calmed down, and then we started to make out, and I, well, we’d made out before, and I loved Steve, I really loved him, but before that day I hadn’t felt quite so, well, something was new, something was squirming inside me, it was like the time I ate the mushroom, I was painfully open, hungrily open, and I let him touch me and I touched him and he came in my hand. He’d never done that before, and I was kind of overwhelmed, it was a little disgusting, I didn’t know it’d be like that. I cried out and sat up. And he turned away and wiped himself off and said he was sorry but he couldn’t help it. I kissed him and tried to pretend I didn’t mind, but I felt a little sick.
    I went home after that. Mom was home although it was only a little after four and she was surprised that I had skipped work. I didn’t tell her I’d also skipped French and math. The minute she
laid eyes on me, she could tell something was wrong, so I told her about the cops. I said I didn’t feel well.
    She looked at me with concern and felt my forehead, and I had this idea she was smelling my breath. I could still taste the pot in my mouth and wondered if she could smell it, but she didn’t say anything. She told me to lie down and she’d bring me some tea. In a little while, I drifted off to sleep. But after that, I thought she acted just a little bit odd. Something was bothering her. I could tell by the set of her neck. And a few days after that, she told me she thought I should spend the summer with Dad. She had decided this all on her own. She asked Dad to get me a job and he called a couple of nights later to say I could be a waitress at some bistro there a friend of his owned, and together he and Mom hustled me up there, giving me no say whatever about it. I was livid.
    I admit it was heading to be a lonely summer anyway. Sandy was going to the summer camp she’d gone to for years in Maine, this year as a paid counselor. Bishop was going to the dude ranch in Nevada that his uncle owned, also to work for pay. The only kids who would be around over the summer were Dolores, and probably Steve. Steve was going to be working full time but he’d be around nights and I could see him on weekends. I didn’t want to go to Vermont and protested vociferously. It did me no good. Mom was determined to get rid of me. Steve thought she knew what we’d done in the car—I think he thought I told her—and that she wanted to separate us. I didn’t see how she could know about that, but then I didn’t see how she could know about the drugs, either. That she knew something seemed clear.
    Or maybe Dad had been right all these years and she did have a lover and wanted to get me out of the way. The idea had crossed my mind before. Or maybe it was because she was trying to find a new job. Ever since Daddy left after Christmas, I’d been hearing
her phone her friends to ask if they knew of anything. She had made up a résumé and had it photocopied in the Square and sent it to a hundred colleges. She did most of this in her cubicle in Holyoke Center, where she kept an electric typewriter, so Daddy