Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,22

our progress.

I heard the band tuning back up.

After I took a hot shower at home, Mom handed me a cup of steaming tea, settled me in a kitchen chair, put on her everyday scowl, and went to work on my confidence. “What were you thinking to get involved in something like this?”

My defensive hackles went up. I forced them down.

Being the oldest sucks. Personally, I’ve always suspected our mother/daughter conflict has everything to do with me being the firstborn female. I had a theory about relationships between mothers and oldest daughters. They couldn’t get along no matter how hard they tried. I’d seen it time and time again by observing other families. While Mom had a hot, poisonous tongue and spoke out before thinking about how harsh her comments were, most mother/daughter relationships were cooler and crisper. Sometimes I wished for a cold, restrained version of Mom.

Since most of my immediate family lives within a ten-mile radius of each other, I really try to get along with them the best I can. But I seem to be the only one who has unresolved issues with Mom.

Grams squeezed my arm to show support. She had her gray hair pulled up in her standard cute little bun with a new, fresh daisy tucked into it. Grams, at eighty, was an avid flower gardener, card player, and amateur photographer.

“You didn’t kill that girl, did you?” Mom asked. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

“Of course not. I just found her. That’s all there is to it.”

“What must people think?” That’s my mom, she really focused on the important things in life.

“Now, Helen,” Grams scolded my mother. “It’s your daughter we should be most concerned about, not the neighbors.”

With a little coaxing from Grams, I told them what I knew, which was next to nothing other than that my kayak had gone missing and Clay had given me the impression this morning that Faye was with him, when all along she must’ve been lying dead in my kayak.

“You’re still shaking,” Grams said when I tried to take a sip of my tea and my trembling hand gave me away. “I’ll get you a sweater.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

Grams didn’t believe me about being fine. She went into my bedroom to find a cover-up. Her departure gave Mom another opportunity.

“When are you going to stop causing problems for us?” she complained. “This is killing your grandmother. First, you marry the wrong man . . .”

True. I had liked Clay more than I should have simply because my mother hadn’t.

“Your personal life is spread over the entire town like a B movie . . .”

Not my fault that Clay tried to sleep with every woman in town.

“And poor Manny Chapman is killed by the same kind of bees you have, and I can look right out this window and see them all over the place. What do you have, a death wish?”

Heavy sigh.

“Now you’re linked to what might turn out to be murder, through some kind of sex triangle!”

“Okay, that’s going too far,” I said. “I have a few bullet points for you. One, I have no control over Clay’s actions. Two, Manny’s death has hit me hard enough without you going through this big lecture, okay? Three, he was killed by wasps, not honeybees. Four, I’m not involved in any triangle. And five, I refuse to take responsibility for Clay’s bad behavior ever again.”

“Not taking responsibility has been your problem all along.” Mom made a sour expression. Worry lines were permanently etched in her forehead. I knew that if I pointed them out to her, she’d blame those on me, too.

Grams came out of my bedroom carrying a cardigan.

“Mom’s ready to leave,” I said to her, taking the sweater and putting it on. But my goose bumps and shivers weren’t from coldness. Extra layers wouldn’t help bring back Manny or Faye. “Thanks for rescuing me at the river.”

Grams beamed. “You’re welcome, sweetie. Take care of yourself. If you don’t want to be alone, you can come stay with us for a while.”

“I’ll remember that.” No, thanks! Eating poisonous mushrooms would be less painful than staying with my mother.

“I’ll drive,” Mom said to Grams at the door, picking up an ongoing conversation that they carried from one scene to another. You’d think she’d have given up by now.

“I’m perfectly capable, Helen.” Grams refused to give up the driver’s seat, which annoyed my mom no end. The Cadillac Fleetwood was Grams’s pride and joy. It had been the height of