Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,133

I had my first job in an ice-cream parlor when I was fifteen. Nancy was dancing twenty-four seven. Our father was gone and Mom, well, she had taste for the finer things in life but would rather die than earn her keep. She found all work demeaning.”

I listen to her voice, realizing that I don’t really know much about her.

“Yeah, let’s go shopping and tell me more about your crazy childhood with Aunt Nancy,” I say, looking at my beautiful mother. She glances at me, her hair blowing with the slight breeze wafting in the car from my open window.

“Sweet Nancy,” she whispers. “She was my rock. She protected me and never once complained. I knew you were in good hands with her.”

We’re silent for the rest of drive, cruising downtown. Before I know it, we’re in L.A. She navigates her way to my favorite mall and the next thing I know, we’re in Nordstrom.

It’s then that I see where I get my fashion sense. We almost have the same taste and the same opinions on everything. We move from one store to the other, trying on sunglasses too big for our faces and fancy church lady’s hats. In one store, we come across these impossibly high stilettos. Out of nowhere, all the times I’ve spent talking to Cole jumps up and I make a bet with her. If she can walk the entire floor and back with the heels on, I’d let her help me move in my new place.

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, you only get on hug at the airport for ten seconds.”

“Bet,” she says looking determined. I’m laughing, thinking she won’t do it, but she actually removes her sandals, puts on the leather stilettos and zooms past me and out the shop… with shoes she hasn’t paid for.

“Ma’am, you haven’t paid for those!” the store attendant calls after her. I quickly grab my new phone and start recording. I guess I’m not the only one as suddenly, my mother is running, literally running across the entire floor of the mall, with the store attendant and two mall guards after her.

“Holy shit!” I laugh until I feel tears streaming down my face. She’s upper fast and flexible and out runs the guards. When she comes back to the store, I’m gasping for breath.

“Ma’am! Those shoes…”

“Yes, I was just checking them,” Mom says seriously, not even flustered. She even has the audacity to checks herself out in the floor-ceiling length mirror, with an impassive look on her face like she didn’t just cause a bit of chaos in this busy as fuck mall. “How do you expect people to buy shoes without trying them out first.”

The store attendant is out of breath, panting. I feel sorry for her.

“I’m sorry for this woman,” I whisper, adopting my own serious face. “She’s not well… you know, in the head.”

The sympathy that immediately fills the poor girl’s eyes is so sudden and so genuine, I almost feel bad for lying. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. Just hang in there, dear things will get well.”

Oh my God, this is gold! From the corner of my eye, I can see Mom trying not to laugh then she starts twirling around over and over, going along with the act.

“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” I say with mock sadness. “I’m just trying to give her a good time before she goes back to the coo-coo house.” I sigh heavily and the girl clutches her chest. “And I’m so sorry, we can’t take those shoes. She has osteoarthritis.”

“Really? Isn’t she too young for that?”

“Hmm I think she pissed God off in a past life,” I say sadly. At that, Mom starts stumbling, grabbing at everything so she can stay upright. “Oh my God, Mom, careful!”

By the time we leave the shop, with me supporting Mom with all our shipping bags under my arm, I’m all but dying with laughter.

“Osteoarthritis?” she says in between laughs. “You just had that one ready to go, didn’t you?”

“I read about it just recently,” I laugh.

By the time we get back home, we’ve shopped like you wouldn’t believe. We even did grocery shopping.

I’ve never had this much fun in a while. And to be honest, I’ve never seen my mother so open and carefree as she was today. We were so in sync, and so in the moment that the day just blew right past us.

When we get home, Liam is there is waiting for us, but I don’t tell him