I grabbed my sneakers off the floor. “Are your shoes up here?” I asked Karyn.
“No, I took them off when I came in,” she answered. “I’m sure they’re still there. Let’s go.”
We went downstairs and found my mother and Leah talking in the kitchen. My mother saw us approach and said,
“So Leah tells me you two had quite the fun time.”
“Leah!” I yelled at my sister.
“What?” Leah protested. “I always tell Mommy everything.”
“Don’t get mad at her, Joey,” said my mother. “I told her to go upstairs and you know I would have asked you
if she didn’t tell me anyway. I’m surprised, Joey, you always tell me yourself, so why get upset?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I decided to just roll with the punches on that one. My mother was not
alien to this new world, so I assumed she knew better than me. It did begin to make me wonder if the change
affected the personalities of all people. I was never the “kiss and tell” type, let alone a “have sex and
tell” type, so it surprised me to hear my mother say that.
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said. “Little distracted, I guess. Is Da…I mean, Mom home yet?”
My mother looked at me curiously. However, she didn’t question my slip of the tongue as she said, “No, not
yet. One of these days she’ll be able to get home by 4.”
“So what did you do during ‘sex time?’” asked Karyn.
My mother shrugged her shoulders. “Same thing I always do when she isn’t here. Fight the urge until it goes
away,” she said.
“How do you fight the urge?” asked Karyn. I was apprehensive at this question because I assumed the answer is
something we should already know.
“My trick is to just not think about Bobbi,” she answers. Robert was my father’s name, so I again assumed it
was now Roberta, but ‘Bobbi’ sounded a lot better. “She’s been the only woman for me, so if I don’t think
about her I can get past it. Longest ten minutes of the day, for sure.”
I did remember my parents telling me they met during grade school and were pretty much connected from that
moment. I always thought that was sweet. My mother also did reveal some important information. Apparently
the “sex time” urge was ten minutes. I wondered why the computer didn’t tell us that, but we didn’t
specifically ask, either.
“I wonder what my parents do when they’re not together,” Karyn pondered. Her expression changed to one which
told me she didn’t mean to say that aloud.
“You don’t know?” my mother asked.
Karyn stammered, “Uh-uh, no.”
“Huh,” said my mother. “I’ve always thought being as open as possible was the best way, but that’s just my
opinion. To each her own.”
Now that, I thought, was definitely odd. My mother would never shy away from thinking her own viewpoint was
the right one, and letting other people know it. As I grew older that usually became a source of
embarrassment for me. It would be refreshing to not worry about that anymore.
“Well, I don’t know how open they are or aren’t,” Karyn protested. “Maybe it’s just that I’m not open with
them.”
My mother smiled. “You can always talk to me or Bobbi if you feel the need,” she said. “You know how much we
care about you.”
“Thanks,” Karyn said as she smiled back. “Uh, we’re actually going to my house now, so we’ll have to pass on
dinner.”
“OK,” said my mother. “We’ll see you later.”
Karyn and I put on our shoes and headed for the front door. Before we stepped outside, I called back to my
sister and asked, “Hey, Leah, what’s everyone wearing today?”
Leah appeared in the hallway and said, “You’re being really silly, Joey. It’s summer, you know everyone’s
naked.”
I grinned at Karyn and then back at Leah. “You’re right, that was silly. See you later,” I said. I opened
the door and we stepped out into the new world.