“Jennifer? What are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be at the school?” A familiar-sounding voice echoed inside the almost empty coffee shop.
The woman, who was in her mid-forties, sat at the same table with Jennifer. Her presence reminded Jennifer of the dreams she had this morning, or rather the memories of living somewhere else with a person who looked like her.
“Mom?” Jennifer asked the mature lady.
“Yes, sweetie. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. How have you been?” Jennifer’s mom smiled.
Jennifer didn’t know how to reply back. She saw flashes of images in her head of where she used to live with her mom and her dad in a town called Glendale. A name for a place that she didn’t recognize. What was going on? Has Jennifer been in Glendale before? No, that can't be true. Jennifer’s father never suggested or hinted that they were going to move. So it felt more than absurd that she would remember bits and pieces of a place where she had never lived. These weird memories and experiences were only her dreams. Or were they? Jennifer couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
Jennifer looked at her mom. Her mom looked as if she was going to ask her the question, ‘Sweety, how are you feeling?’ Just like her dad would have asked her. Before her mom could ask that question, Jennifer had to lie to her mother and pretend that everything was going great. She told her mom that she felt tired and usually had her morning coffee at this particular coffee shop. Jennifer gave a very tired and weak smile to her mother and hoped that she would buy her lie as is.
“Good to hear that everything’s going great for you. How’s your father doing? Is he treating you well?" Jennifer's mother, Annabel, yapped and moved from topic to topic without giving time for Jennifer to reply back. "Sweetie, I’m sorry that I couldn’t take you with me to Glendale. As you should know, working as the Sultry Scarlett's personal lawyer is sucking all the energy out of me, and it wouldn't leave room to take care of you. So is your father taking good care of you? I could take you back to Glendale with me at any time. There's an empty room on the second floor just for you.”
Jennifer’s mind paused for a second. Did her mom say Glendale? A cold sweat ran all over Jennifer’s body. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Jennifer’s mind raced when she learned that her mom lived in the place that she had seen in her dream, and her mom worked as a lawyer for the world-famous company that sold sex toys. Jennifer had heard from the news how Sultry Scarlett was always in legal trouble because of their weird company benefits which they offered to their employees. Which made Jennifer finally notice how massive and firm her mom’s chest was.
“Mom. Is it me, or are your, umm, breasts bigger than they should be?” Jennifer asked her mom.
“No! Jennifer, they’re not!” Jennifer’s mother harrumphed and lifted her massive porn-actress-sized, silicone-filled chest with her forearms. Jennifer sensed that she had asked the wrong question as she could hear her mom mumbling, "maybe it was a mistake to leave Jennifer with Otto. She’s acting just like you. But as the saying goes, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”
There was a long, awkward pause, which was broken by the barista, who held Jennifer’s large iced coffee in their hands. Jennifer’s mom switched the conversation topic to something else, and after a while the conversation returned back to more normal small talk topics. Jennifer felt that she had accidentally offended her mom but didn’t want to tell her that she was sorry. A small, intrusive voice in Jennifer’s head shouted at her to apologize to her mom for the rude comment. Jennifer felt that she shouldn’t suddenly bring such an awkward topic back to the table. So she instead ignored the pleading voices in her head and continued the conversation with her mom.
An hour later, Jennifer told her mom that her next class was about to start. This was another lie. Jennifer had no intention of going to the school today and instead wanted to skip the rest of the classes and go shopping instead.
“Hmm. What if instead I call your school and say that you are sick and we spend the rest of the day together?” Jennifer’s mother suggested.
Jennifer considered her mom’s offer, but something about it smelled fishy. Was her mom seeing right through her lies?