“Try to stay out of trouble,” she says with a grin. Her voice is teasing, but there’s a firmness there that makes me think she doesn’t say this to all incoming students.
“Absolutely,” I say.
Back in the parking lot I start unloading the car. There’s a bunch of stuff. Mom spent Labor Day weekend pretending we’d never had a fight and buying me extravagant presents to make up for that fight we never had. I am now the owner of a new iPod, a leather bomber jacket, and a laptop. I’m pretty sure I saw her paying for the laptop with Clyde Austin’s credit card, but I pretended not to notice. Mom packed my bags for me too, on her working theory that no matter what I say I want, she knows what I’ll actually need. I repacked them as soon as she was out of the room.
“You know I love you, right, baby
