Like the Prose: Challenge #25 – Write a contemporary YA piece.

“Did you get the tickets?” I asked my mother as I dropped into the seat opposite hers in our favorite café. Friday afternoon mochas had been a ritual of ours practically since I’d been weaned. Well, it hadn’t always been mochas. Originally, it had been a spoonful of her coffee mixed into my milk, but, the Friday afternoon thing was sacrosanct.

Through her first marriage, her divorce, her brief dating life, and her marriage to my stepfather (which seemed like it would last), we met for coffee after school on Fridays. I’d tell her about my day, she’d tell me about hers. Then I’d go off to music lessons or community theater rehearsals, or, more recently, a date of my own, and she’d go back to work for a couple of hours, or head home, or go out with my stepfather for a date of their own.

“I did.”

“In the zone?” As a theatre brat I was kind of a snob about seats. The zone meant that the seats were between rows six and sixteen, inclusive.

“Center section, row G, on the aisle. Sweetie, you didn’t have to use your savings on these.”

“Mom, please. It’s the Carole King musical. I grew up with her music. You grew up with her music. How else could we celebrate our last Mothers’ Day with me still living in your house?” My high school graduation was only a few weeks away. I’d already signed on to be resident ingenue in a summer stock theatre company in some cutesy rural town for most of the summer, and then I’d be home long enough to do laundry and pack before I headed off to theatre school. My path was set. “There are some ground rules, though.”

“Ground rules? You’re going to tell me what I can or can’t wear.”

“I don’t care what you wear, as long you don’t feel the need to demonstrate that your underwear matches your outfit while you’re driving.”

“We were stopped at a red light.”

“All my friends were in the car.”

“It was all girls.”

“Daniel isn’t a girl.”

“True. But he’s gay. Also, Veronica is bi.”

“Is she?”

“She announced it last week in the leadership meeting. Brought cupcakes and everything. They were a little dry.”

My mother rolled her eyes at me. “Fine. What else are you going to restrict? Am I allowed to speak? Should I walk three paces behind you? Are you sure you even want to be sitting together?”

“Mom!” I filled the word with my exasperation. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

“Don’t you think you’re over-controlling?”

“I call it ‘having strong leadership skills,’ and where do you think I got them from?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, so… Mom, the thing is… I know you know all the lyrics, but… this is a musical. Not a concert.”

“And…?” her tone was dark. Like, one step away from straightening her glasses at me dark.

“It’s totally okay to sing along with the music at a concert, but you don’t do that at a musical. Except during the curtain call, when they invite it.”

“I can sing if I want to.”

“Mom, do you really think that’s….”

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that your singing is…”

She actually did straighten her glasses. “What about my singing?”

In an almost robotic tone I said, “You sing with great joy and enthusiasm.” Mentally, I added, “and absolutely no sense of pitch, whatsoever.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Mom – ”

“Yes?”

“Never mind.”

We finished our mochas in silence. Maybe when I was older, I’d be better at picking my battles. Maybe I’d never win with her. Or, maybe, there would come a time when I’d realize that as tone deaf as she was, the fact that my mother would never stop singing along with musicals, with the radio, with the stupid sound system at the grocery store, was somehow beautiful.

Then again… maybe not.