I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Mona. Really. One more thing,” Anna said.
“Don’t mention this to Mandy, and certainly not to Christina. They’ll think I’ve lost my mind.”
“You don’t have to keep asking me to keep your business to myself. I ain’t no gossip. You ought to know that by now.”
“I do, Mona. I’m just a bit . . . confused right now. I’ll make sure to be ready to leave by six; that way we can allow for traffic,” Anna told her. “Maybe we can grab a Whataburger on the way home?” she asked. A well-known Texas hamburger chain—Anna had craved Whataburgers when she was pregnant with Christina, and to this day, it was her favorite guilty-pleasure food, along with the Norman Love chocolates.
“You got yourself a deal,” Mona said. “I’m gonna scrub up the kitchen floors now, so if there’s anything you need, you better get it now. I didn’t stock that pretend kitchen of yours ’cause you ain’t workin’, so don’t go lookin’ for food down there.” The entire lower house consisted of her studio, office, bathroom, and on-set kitchen.
“I promise I won’t get in your way. I’ll be ready to go at six,” Anna said, then went back inside for one final cup of coffee before Mona started on the floors, which already sparkled like the Hope Diamond. Cleaning was Mona’s gig, and she loved it, so Anna let her do whatever her heart desired.
Once Anna was upstairs, she spent the next three hours responding to comments and questions from her viewers. While it was virtually impossible to answer every question, she did as best she could. Sometimes the comments were hateful, downright filthy. She had the power through YouTube to block them. She didn’t like doing this, but she had an audience ranging from age eleven to ninety-eight. The Simple Life was just that. Ways to make life easier, ways to prepare quick, nutritious meals. She worked hard to be unique, yet not so much that ingredients, materials, or whatever products she used were hard to come by. She remembered how, back in the days of neighborhood barbecues, she’d had a neighbor comment on why she didn’t use fancy ingredients like Martha Stewart, and her answer had been, “I like to keep it simple.” And to this day, that was her practice. Yes, she could whip up a gourmet meal in less than an hour, she could design clothes and sew them as well as any fancy designer, but her passion was food, and decorating her house, and sharing these passions with her viewers.
When she finished with her comments, she returned to the Texas Tech website. She pulled up Ryan’s bio and read through it again. She skimmed through a few other professors’ bios just out of curiosity.
“I’m not sure if it’s a good fit for Patrick.”
She remembered his telling her that his son was headed for college, and . . . Texas Tech might not be right for him.
With Clara’s help, she hoped she could better understand what had caused her to shed her inhibitions as fast as she’d obviously shed her clothes that night; at least she’d have some understanding of her actions.
It was so out of character for her that he surely had to be one in a million for her to get intimately involved so soon. There hadn’t been any alcohol; she was sure of that, because when she’d been sick on the ship, she’d been full of coffee. If Christina learned of this, she would be mortified. Some example she was. They’d had the sex talk last summer, when Christina started having periods. She wasn’t bashful about discussing sex with her mother, either. Kids in Christina’s generation had sex before they were in high school. Some even earlier. While she wanted her daughter to have a normal and healthy attitude about sex, she did not want her learning that dear old mom made a habit of sleeping with the first date, if you wanted to call it that.
First date . . .
There was something about those two words. He’d said them, though in what context? Unsure, she forced herself to stop obsessing over her one indiscretion. This was the twenty-first century. If anyone found out, Anna doubted they’d pin a scarlet letter on her lapel. It was her and her old-fashioned upbringing that was the problem. She wouldn’t stray from her beliefs anytime soon. She was forty-one. At this late date, she highly doubted she was going to revert to some kind of