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Anita hid a smile, then stood for a quiet moment in the garden. As much as she wanted to return to her project, she should probably preempt her car’s maintenance troubles. She guessed that most auto shops closed at five or six p.m., which meant she had to start calling now to track down a battery.
After a handful of phone calls, she had the battery priced out. Everyone would be closed on the weekend, so it needed to be her top priority on Monday. Surely her car could behave until then, even if it required another jump-start.
Meanwhile, she pulled out a box of Hamburger Helper. Not her favorite meal, but a childhood favorite of Carly’s. There was hamburger meat in the freezer, so she took it out and set it in a pan of warm water to begin thawing. She should have started this all earlier, but Carly’s original plans had been to hang out at Samantha’s house tonight, and have dinner there. Anita had planned on having a sandwich solo.
Just as she was pulling out a few salad fixings from the refrigerator, the phone rang. She answered, and it was Samantha on the other line.
“Carly, it’s Samantha,” Anita called out.
In record time, she appeared from her bedroom.
“Keep it short,” Anita said before Carly picked up the receiver.
“Hi,” Carly said, then headed down the hallway, the long cord trailing after her. “I can’t. I’m grounded.”
That was the last Anita heard of the conversation before Carly disappeared into the bedroom. She wondered if Samantha was grounded. And what about Evie? Was grounding the right thing to do with a fourteen-year-old? Would something else be more effective? She didn’t want to push Carly too far, but she also didn’t want her daughter suspended from school.
She began to rip up the iceberg lettuce. She’d make a Caesar salad because Carly was sure to eat that. When Anita had been in school, she’d never considered stealing or vandalizing. But then again, her single best friend hadn’t been the type to do that either. So maybe she had just been lucky with her friend choice. Not that she had a ton of choices. She seemed to say awkward things in social situations, so she hadn’t been the type of teenager to have a gaggle of friends or get invited to the cool-kid parties. She’d kept to herself most of the time, unless she was with her best friend.
The conversation between Carly and Samantha was officially past “keep it short,” but something tugged in Anita’s heart, and she couldn’t bring herself to give Carly a warning. She set the bowl of lettuce aside and checked on the thawing meat. It was mostly soft, so she set the frying pan on the stove and turned on the element. The meat began to sizzle right away, and she filled a pot with water to begin boiling the pasta from the Hamburger Helper box.
A few minutes later, Carly came out of her bedroom, her expression sullen.
Anita couldn’t help but ask, “Are your friends grounded too?”
“No,” she said. “Their moms are letting them hang out tonight.” She turned her sad eyes on her mother. “They want me to come over.”
Anita wished she could say yes—she wanted to say yes—but wasn’t getting suspended from school kind of serious? And why were the other parents not being more strict? “No, I can’t go back on our agreement.”
Carly huffed and walked back to her room.
What were the chances she was actually doing homework? Again, an ache pinched Anita’s heart as she wished she had her little girl back. She stirred in the pasta, added a dash of salt, then used the spatula to dice up the hamburger into smaller pieces.
The phone rang again, and she wiped off her hands to answer it.
“Anita?” the deep voice said. “How are you?”
Her arms broke out in goose bumps, and she didn’t know if it was in a good way. “Hi, Glenn.”
“What are you doing?”
The question irritated her because after their last date, he said he’d call her the next day and figure out something to do the next weekend. He’d never called. And now it was the following weekend, but Anita wasn’t going anywhere with Carly stuck at home. Carly would probably love her to leave, so that was out of the question.
Anita had attempted dating this past year. Previously, she hadn’t wanted anything to interfere with raising Carly, even though she knew that having a father figure in her daughter’s life would be of value. With Carly’s social life picking up on the weekends, it gave Anita a little more freedom than she was used to.
“Making dinner,” she told Glenn. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm.” His voice was a low rumble, which might have been sexy, but it was only irritating right now. “What’s for dinner?”
“Hamburger Helper.”
Glenn laughed. “I haven’t had that in forever. Which box? Maybe I’ll come over.”
“Uh...” Anita was already tired of the twenty-questions game. “Doesn’t really matter because I don’t want any company tonight. It’s just me and Carly.” For some reason, she didn’t want to tell him about Carly’s suspension.
“Girls only, huh?” Glenn asked, then lowered his voice. “What about after hours? Carly goes to bed around ten, right?”
They’d been on three official dates, and a couple of meetups at city events. Anita sensed that Glenn liked her more than she liked him, but that he wasn’t exactly fully invested. He sort of disappeared for a while, then suddenly reappeared. They’d almost kissed on the last date, but then it hadn’t happened. Anita had been disappointed at the time, but right now she was feeling kind of glad. Strange.
