Page 47 of The Pleasure Contract

“Sweeping?… Do you mean a Roomba? My mom doesn’t own a Roomba; that’s just silly, she can’t afford-”

My words cut off when Pax makes DJ project a scene in front of us. “The particular unit your mother has features audio, visual, and network connectivity.” But I don’t really hear a word he says because I’m currently looking at my mom’s slippers and a stack of crochet magazines that she swears she’s going to read, collect the patterns she wants from, and then throw out. But she never will. They just keep coming in the mail since she won that subscription competition by crocheting the ugliest Easter bunny you ever did see. Honestly, I think the judges must have taken pity on her.

A hot tear rolls down my cheek.

“Lois? Are you alright?”

It’s Az’s voice that brings me back to the moment again.

“No,” I croak out, wiping my face but not able to look away from the projection in front of us. “I’m crying about a really ugly Easter bunny.”

Then the scene moves. We’re spinning around, and I can see now that we’re underneath my mom’s coffee table. And…

And there she is.

Sitting on the sofa in her pink bathrobe.

Her face is illuminated by the light coming through the window – the window she seems to be staring out of in a sad, unfocussed way.

The air leaves my lungs, and for some reason, the only thing that comes out of my mouth is, “Since when did she get a Roomba?”

Mom’s head snaps toward me, her brows furrowed, but the scene changes again as we spin and start moving toward an armchair.

“Did that thing just talk?” I hear my mom say. “Kenny? Did you connect the Roomba to the internet again? I told you, I don’t like it doing that.”

“Kenny?” I ask, praying that the damn thing will spin back around so I can see Mom again. “Mom, is Mr Callahan there with you?” Ken Callahan was Mom’s neighbor. A widower, he used to do odd jobs around the house for her in exchange for a home-cooked meal, but- “Mom, are you dating Mr Callahan now?”

There’s silence. All we can see are dust bunnies being shoved around under the armchair until we spin again.

Mom looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Mom,” I try again, my voice a little wobbly as the Roomba starts advancing on her feet. “It’s me. It’s-

We bump into the coffee table.

Mom’s eyes go wider.

“It’s Lois! I’m ok. I’m alive and well. I’m just… I was… well, I was abducted by bad aliens, but I live with good aliens now.”

I guess neither I, Az, nor Pax really considered what it would be like for a human to engage in an intergalactic communication with someone you thought dead through a rogue Roomba.

“Kenneeey!!!!” Mom screeches, scrambling backward over the sofa.

A few moments later, I’m greeted by Mr Callahan’s feet and my mom pointing an accusatory finger at me – which really goes quite some way in drying up those tears I thought I’d be bawling my eyes out with by now.

“Someone’s talkin’, pretending to be my Lois, Ken; listen!”

“Hi, Mr Callahan,” I say, wondering when it was that he got so cozy with my mom. “It’s me, Lois.”

“It’s some scam-artist,” Mom insists. “Shame on you! Trying to take advantage of me!”

“By what? Sweeping your floor and bumping into your furniture? Mom, it’s me!”

Mr Callahan takes a seat in the armchair and tilts his head at me like a curious dog. “If you’re really Joanie’s Lois, tell her something only the real Lois would know.”

Mom puts her hands on her hips and raises her brows in challenge.

“Uh… Mom’s middle name is Irene… um… she loves popcorn but hates getting it all stuck in her teeth… uh…” Mom’s arms drop from her hips. “For my junior prom, we couldn’t really afford to get me the dress I wanted – it was powder blue with a full skirt and underskirts. Mom found a way to barter with the store owner, whom she’d been doing odd seamstress jobs for at the time. She’d clean the lady’s house twice a week for three months if I could have the dress on loan. I was so scared about getting it dirty, I refused two dances – one with the boy I’d had a crush on for a year.”