The Good Life by Susan Kietzman Page B

and labeled the box: Br Drive Moc w/ G Bkl. She took both the box and the clothes to her closet and put everything in its proper place. She hesitated at the wall of shoe boxes, and then sat on her chrome stool to count her fall/winter collection. She had seventeen pairs of everyday shoes in brown, including the new moccasins, twenty-three pairs in black, and sixteen pairs of what she called “funky everyday.” She had fifteen pairs of suit shoes, suitable for upscale charity meetings and business receptions, and thirty-five pairs of party shoes, her favorite. She got up from her seat, walked to the party section, and removed a box from its slot. Inside was a pair of Italian black satin sling-back pumps, with the daintiest heel she could stand upon without toppling over. She ran her fingers across the miniature toe box and along the skinny heel strap. She remembered Mike telling her how sexy she looked at Susie Dalton’s Christmas party the year before. She would have to find a reason to wear them again. She walked out of her closet and back to her bed, where she sat and removed her shoes. She grabbed the phone from the table next to the bed and called Jesse. “My mother is driving me crazy.”
    “Hmm,” said Jesse.
    “And I don’t want to hear, ‘I told you so.’ ”
    “What do you want to hear?” asked Jesse.
    “I want sympathy.”
    “You poor thing,” said Jesse. “How’s that?”
    Ann lay back on the bed. “She’s down in my kitchen making a concoction for Thanksgiving.”
    “And?” asked Jesse.
    “She’s got her own kitchen, for God’s sake. She doesn’t need to be nosing around mine.”
    “As if you ever use your kitchen,” Jesse pointed out.
    “I do use my kitchen,” stated Ann. “Just because I don’t cook very often doesn’t mean I don’t use my kitchen. I’m in it all the time.”
    “You can be there when she’s there, you know,” said Jesse. “That’s probably what she’s looking for. She wants to spend some time with you.”
    “And I want to spend some time with her,” said Ann, draping her free arm across her forehead. “But I want to do it on my own terms. If I spend the entire day with her, I’ll snap. Honestly, Jesse, I’ll just let her have it.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she’s my mother and all mothers drive their daughters crazy,” said Ann. “And because she’ll want to crawl into my head and into my life in a last-stab effort at getting to know me better. I don’t want her to know me any better. I want her to live in the guesthouse out back and come to me when she needs help.”
    “I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work,” said Jesse.
    Ann closed her eyes. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
    “No, you haven’t,” said Jesse. “You’re just going to have to be more flexible, Ann. We all do, at certain times.”
    “I hate being flexible,” said Ann.
    “Work on it,” said Jesse. “In the meantime, go be with your mother.”
     
    When Ann walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, her mother was gone. On the counter was a plastic container filled with a thick orange liquid, still steaming. The blue lid sat next to it, plastered with a wide piece of masking tape and the words Mama’s Butternut Squash Soup written in her mother’s handwriting. The shining copper pot was hanging in its usual spot over the island, and the other dishes and utensils her mother used had been washed and dried and were sitting on a dish towel on the counter. A note in her mother’s handwriting lay on the counter next to the dishes. Ann picked it up and read: I’m sorry I used your kitchen without asking you. I hope you like the soup. It’s your grandmother’s recipe . Ann put the note down. “I hate this,” she said.
    She put the soup in the fridge, then picked up the phone and called Mike’s office. She left a message with his secretary to have him meet her at the club at seven o’clock for dinner in the bar. She then called Nate’s and Lauren’s