“Yes, Mother. You have my permission to repack my suitcase.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathes.
She’s an avenging goddess of organization and efficiency as she tears my clothing out of the suitcase, hands blurring as she unfolds my haphazard stacks of shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses, and tops and rolls them into tidy little cylinders, and just like that, I have room in the previously overstuffed suitcase for a couple pairs of shoes, a hoodie, a nice cardigan, and my toiletries as well as a pile of underwear, bras, and socks.
I stand back, grinning. “Man, you aresogood at that, Mom.”
She flips the top closed and zips it with authority, then glances at me. Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “You just played me, didn’t you?”
I can’t help but burst into laughter. “Like a fiddle.”
She rolls her eyes. “You could have just asked, you know.”
“It was more fun this way.”
She’s laughing, now too. “You spent over an hour on that con, Jolene. Pretending to fold and sort and pack, all while I watched, knowing it was driving my OCD nuts.”
“You don’t have OCD, Mom. You’re just a neat freak.”
“It’s a spectrum, I’m telling you. Am I Jack Nicholson inAs Good As It Gets? No. Do I have rather specific compulsions regarding cleanliness and organization? Yes.”
I look up at the ceiling, thinking. “Hmmm. Alphabetized spice rack? Check. Clothing organized by season and by color? Check. Dust Buster in every room of the house? Check.”
She tries to hold a stern expression. “Cleanliness is next to godliness. And organization is an integral part of cleanliness.”
I kiss her on the cheek. “I know, Mom. And I’m thankful for your compulsive dedication to godliness.”
She begins refolding the clothing I took out but decided not to take with me; I put the rest back on the hangers and in the closet. When my room has been returned to its naturally orderly state—that’s a joke, by the way—Mom sits on the edge of my bed and toys with the zipper tab of my suitcase.
She’s chewing on something—she has been this whole time she’s been helping me pack, but she’s still working out how to say it.
I sigh and sit next to her. Wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Whatever it is, Mom, just say it. You can talk to me.”
She sniffs a laugh. “Funny.”
“For real, Mom. I know you’re trying to figure out how to say something. So just…out with it.”
She runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t…I don’t know how.”
“Just be blunt,” I say. “At this point, there’s no point in being tactful.”
Another sigh. “You’re really going to marry him? Like, actually marry?”
“I think so.”
She looks at me, uncomfortable. “I know you’re nineteen and not a child. But you’re also…innocent.”
I groan. “Mom.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “You told me to just say it, so I’m saying it. You can’t shush me now because it makesyouuncomfortable.” She holds my gaze, giving me the Serious Mother look. “You’re a virgin, Jolene. He’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I suppose I don’t, not for certain. But I find it hard to believe a handsome twenty-one-year-old male actor at the peak of Hollywood fame would be. It’s just smarter to assume he’s not a virgin, that he has experience you don’t.”
I lift a shoulder. “Okay, granted. And?”
“You know the birds and the bees, Jolene—”
