Away Running by David Wright

closed the door and sat on the commode. Just a few minutes to myself.
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    “ The Second Sex remains a touchstone text…”
    Juliette was preaching at Freeman as I served myself a second helping of lasagna. Her goddess was Simone de Beauvoir.
    “She sounds fascinating,” Freeman said in English, all flirty.
    “Hear, hear.” Jules lifted her wineglass.
    (She’d served us sparkling mineral water.)
    “Never heard of her,” I lied and plunged a forkful of pasta into my mouth.
    She threw a leaf of lettuce at me. “Dumb jock. You should take some cues from your friend here.”
    Freeman finished his plate and pushed back from the folding card table we’d set up in the corner. “This is by far the best lasagna I’ve ever eaten,” he said in English, and Jules blushed, and I was like, Stop!
    I said, “Jules, really, is feminism still even relevant?” I knew this would make her thick.
    “Relevant!” She pushed aside her plate, not just thick but fuming, her face suddenly flushed. I could almost see smoke streaming out of her ears. “Take a look around, kiddo. Women’s rights have a long way to go before…”
    I laughed, and she realized I was pulling her leg.
    “I’m the one who was raised by a hardcore feminist, remember?” I said.
    “Yeah, but your mom ditched the cause a long time ago to embrace consumerism instead.”
    And Jules was right. My mom runs the biggest women’s magazine in Canada, one that torments women monthly—about their age, their weight, their inabilities in bed, in the kitchen, as mothers. I’m just seventeen, but I’ve spent so many afternoons with her in her office it’s like I have a PhD in women’s issues. No joke. I probably know more about cellulite and bacterial vaginosis than some doctors.
    I mean, don’t get me wrong—I love my mother. I’m just not sure I always like her very much.
    She left my dad eight months before I came to France, after twenty-nine years of marriage. They met at university, when my mom was a journalism major and my dad was the star running back of the team. They say that if he hadn’t blown out his knee, he would have been a lock for the CFL —he might even have made it in the NFL ! He became a high-school coach instead, and a good one too. But that’s also why my mom ended up leaving him. I guess over the years his good nature and fun personality ended up carrying less weight for her than his lack of ambition.
    I lifted my glass of water. “To my one and only mom.”
    “So, Freeman,” Jules said, “what will you do after college?”
    “Go pro,” he shot back, all bravado.
    “It’s very rare to play professionally, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, it’s probably wise to have a backup plan, no?”
    He looked down at his empty plate, kind of sheepish. “ Bien sûr !” he croaked. Then, in English: “But the NFL would open all kinds of doors. So I could launch myself in broadcasting or the business world or something.”
    Jules asked, “So you guys won today?”
    It hadn’t come up until then. Neither of us answered.
    “You lost?”
    “Got spanked,” Freeman said.
    “At least you didn’t get hurt,” she said to me. “Your mom would never forgive me.”
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    Freeman and I were in the tiny kitchen, doing the dishes, when Juliette, who was sitting at the living-room window smoking a cigarette, called over, “She phoned again this morning, you know, after you left. You need to call her back ASAP .”
    “And you need to quit smoking.”
    Disgusting habit.
    “I’m serious, Mathieu.”
    I didn’t say anything, just dried the dish Freeman handed me and replaced it in the cabinet above the sink.
    “What’s up with that?” he asked.
    “My mom wants me to call.”
    “But why the big deal behind it?”
    I just rubbed and rubbed the washed lasagna casserole with a dish towel.
    I’d talked to her three times since arriving. The first time, all she did was scream, “You’re a minor, for Christ’s sake! You