Barbara Samuel by A Piece of Heaven Page B

the fantasy. What kind of mother went out on a date the first day of school? She’d forgotten. What good mother would have let something so momentous slip her mind?
    With some regret, she realized she should haveplanned a good supper, too, so the two of them could sit down and chat a little without pressure. She’d meant to, and had forgotten.
    Guilt chattered upward from her solar plexus as she looked down at her sleeping daughter. The thick hair spilled over the side of the couch, exotically colored but still as glossy as ever, and her skin was so dewy it was almost heartbreaking. At Joy’s age, Luna’s skin had been annoyingly prone to zits. Joy didn’t appear to have had a pimple in her life.
    She smelled, distinctly, of cigarettes.
    Luna scowled. Surely Joy, Miss Cigarettes Are Disgusting, would not be smoking?
    Interestingly, the odor did not make her want to rush out and have a cigarette herself. In fact, it was something of a miracle that she could pick up the scent on someone else, and it made her feel slightly smug, even as she considered the possibilities of why Joy might smell like that. It was possible she’d stopped at a house where the parents smoked, or she had made a friend who smoked. No jumping to conclusions.
    Joy opened her eyes suddenly, with that wide-open, surprised startle. Sleep glazed her pale blue eyes and she blinked. “Hi.”
    “Hi. Been home long?”
    She stretched luxuriously, and Luna noticed again that she had inherited Kitty’s abundant bosom. “About an hour I guess.”
    “Hungry?”
    “Very. School lunch is disgusting.” She yawned. “I would have made something myself, but I just crashed for a while. Do we have any of that Cajun turkey left?”
    “Sure.” Luna dropped her bag on the coffee table and waved Joy into the kitchen, where she started taking things out of the fridge—the thin-sliced deli meat, broccolisprouts, half a tomato, and the Dijon mustard they agreed made the sandwich heavenly. “Pita or black rye?” she asked, taking a knife from the drawer and two plates from the cupboard.
    “Rye, please.”
    In quiet, they fixed enormous sandwiches, piling on veggies and condiments. Luna sliced a couple of apples to go with it, and pulled out some tortilla chips left over from the party. Admiring the colors of black bread and white corn chips and red apple against blue glass plates, she said, “Now that’s pretty.”
    “Very patriotic.” Joy snorted. “I think we should cut the apple into stars.”
    Luna laughed softly, settling on the stool to dig in. The walk home always seemed to leave her famished, and it appeared that Joy was the same way after school. “You don’t mind eating dinner like this, do you? We can snack later if we’re still hungry.”
    “Are you kidding? I love this.”
    “I’ll try to remember to do sit-down dinners more often. Maybe a little closer to the real dinner hour, too, if you want.”
    Joy rolled her eyes. “Mom. No teenager in the world likes the family dinner hour, trust me.” She shuddered for effect. “And besides, this is a sit-down dinner.”
    She nodded, thinking maybe some avocado would go well with this mix next time. “You’ll tell me if you start wanting pot roast and potatoes and things like that, won’t you?”
    “I’ll tell Grandma.”
    “Low blow,” Luna said, but she grinned. “We will have dinner there on Saturdays, you know, so when you start getting mixed up in the local social whirl, remember to schedule stuff later on Saturday nights.”
    “Starting this week?”
    “Do you have plans already?”
    “Well, no, not exactly. I met this girl at school—she lives, like, right behind us. We talked about doing something maybe. But no way I want to miss Grandma’s Saturday suppers. Maybe she’ll do fondue.”
    “Maybe so.” She made a mental note to request fondue. Her mother would be delighted to accommodate Joy’s tastes. Or Luna’s, for that matter.
    The tradition had started when Elaine and