Page 35 of Sublimate
“My mother.” He flipped through contacts, of which he had a ton, and found the correct one. But it was labeled “Mère.”
“Her name is mere?” I asked.
“Mère,” he said, and the last part got compressed in his throat so it sounded very different from how I’d said it. “It means ‘mother.’ She was raised speaking French and she’ll only talk to me in that language.”
“Then how am I going to understand the conversation?”
He looked at me. “I didn’t think about that. I’ll try to type out what we’re saying as I take notes on the call.” First, he asked me to write down any details I had about myself—anything at all. SoI included my date and place of birth and also my sister’s and mother’s information, too. I knew my sister’s DOB but not my mom’s, and there wasn’t much on the list. He read it over and then tapped the name on his phone.
Hismèreanswered before it even rang, so the woman was either clairvoyant or right on top of her calls. “Nolan,” she said, and then he let loose in another language. I didn’t hear “crudités” but I did catch “Vivienne” and also “O’Keeffe.” She answered and he typed some things, but just a few words so I couldn’t really follow how their conversation was going.
Then he looked at my list of facts and seemed to read from it. Even though those were things about me, they were translated into French so that I couldn’t understand. He asked me some additional questions in English, like where I’d gone to school, my first known address, any other family names…there really wasn’t a lot more that I could add, but he relayed everything (at least, I thought that he did).
“Oui, c'est tout. That’s it,” he said. He listened for another moment, and it didn’t seem like he said goodbye before he hung up. Then he turned to me. “It’s always better to call her. She won’t respond to texts because she considers them to be rude and I’ve tried to email her before, but I think she lets my messages go into her spam folder.”
I nodded because that sounded reasonable to me. My mom would have sent my messages to spam, too, if she’d used email. “What did she say?” I pointed at his laptop screen, which displayed a bunch of words but a lot were in French.
“Sorry, I forgot what I was doing. She’ll take your case.”
“My…I have a case?”
“I should have said, she’ll look into this for you. She’ll be in touch soon.”
“Really? She thinks that she can get results so fast?” I asked.
“If anyone can, my mother is the person.” He looked toward the window. “We should go to the dealership anyway and see what Ryan has in stock.”
“Wait, tell me more about what your mom said on your call,” I requested.
“I explained that my friend Vivienne needs to reclaim her lost documentation, and then I gave her your information.”
“Did she want to know why I don’t have that paperwork already?” I asked.
“No, she doesn’t care.”
“How is she doing? Is she having a good summer?”
“I have no idea,” he answered.
“You didn’t ask her? Didn’t you guys catch up at all?” Every once in a while, I had talked to my mom after I’d moved out. She’d always had a lot to say about her activities, most of which I hadn’t wanted to hear.
“We don’t have that kind of relationship, so I stuck to business. Let’s go for ice cream on the way home,” he suggested, and who was I to say no to an offer like that?
We left but I was still thinking about parents, his and mine, his friend Beau, and Cadence’s mom who lied about where her husband had gone. Maybe, someday, I could also…no. I didn’t make plans like that. There was no sense in doing that when the present was so precarious.
But there was always ice cream.
Chapter 8
It really couldn’t have gone worse, but I gave Cadence a lot of credit for trying.
“How about another glass of iced tea? Or maybe you’d like something else to eat? Should I tilt the umbrella so it gives you better shade—do you have a headache from the heat? August is so…”
She stopped talking but her mom didn’t stop glaring. It was directed at her daughter but it was also coming my way, a lot my way, because this woman didn’t like me. At all. None. And she had made that very, very clear, from the moment that she had first seen me. She had looked me up and down and yeah, I knew that I wasn’t wearing the nicest clothes in the world but there was nothing obscene written on my shirt. Not today, anyway.
Then she’d said, “Oh. A redhead.” I was, undoubtedly, but the way she’d spoken the words made them not a statement of the fact but more like an insult, more like, “Oh. An idiot.” And the way she continued to look at me after that remark carried thesame message. She hadn’t said hello or welcome, either. She had only turned and leaned on her canes as she walked toward the back of the house.
“That’s my mom,” Cadence had belatedly informed me. “Mrs. Norris.” I had called out that it was nice to meet her.
