Page 29 of You Spin Me

Brows up, she says, “I thought you weren’t dating anymore.”

“Well, I didn’t say I’d never date again.” I’d called her to vent after that last date with Charles. “I just want to stop dating assholes.”

She laughs her big belly laugh, which so doesn’t match her refined Nordic looks. “When you figure that out, tell me how. I’ll write a book and make millions.” Like a guard dog, her attention snaps to the playground. “Delilah, that’s too high, honey.”

Delilah, a tiny replica of her mom, pauses halfway up a ladder. “It’s not that high.”

“I am not going to spend the rest of the day in the emergency room.” Bella’s tone is a perfect mix ofIt’s your funeralandI’m your mom; of course I worry about you.

“But other kids are up higher.” Delilah lets go of a metal bar to point at the boys on top.

“They’re not my kids,” Bella replies with impressive calm.

“Mom.” Delilah manages to squeeze four or five syllables out of the word. After a brief glare at her mom, she climbs down.

I suppress a laugh. “She sounds like she’s twelve instead of five.”

“Can’t wait for twelve when she tries to act like she’s seventeen.”

“Like you did, you mean?”

Bella smirks at me. “Are you saying you didn’t?”

“I did not. I loved being twelve.” Picturing my preadolescent, string-bean self, my hair smoothed into a high bun, I sigh. “I had the perfect ballerina body then.”

“Dammit.” Bella launches herself off the bench and stalks to the edge of the sand pit. Delilah has climbed around to the other side of the structure. She must think we can’t see her. I trot behind Bella, catching up as she deposits her daughter back onto the sand.

“Hey, Delilah.” My sister’s a fan of the diversionary tactic, so I ask, “Will you swing with me?”

After fifteen minutes of that, Delilah decides to ride her bike. We trail her as she pedals ahead on the sidewalk that loops around the park.

“Where were we? You met a guy.”

Uncomfortable with my lack of honesty at the club Saturday, I lay it out straight for her. “I haven’t actuallymethim, met him. I mean, I feel like I have because we’ve talked on the phone so much, but I haven’t seen him face-to-face.”

“Is this through a personals ad?” She grabs my forearm, her face a mask of mock-concern. “Don’t tell me you’ve signed up to be a mail-order bride.”

I laugh. “No, it’s weirder than that. A couple weeks ago I called in to a contest at WBAR right after I got home from rehearsal up in Chichester?—”

“I thought it wasChi-chester.”

“That’s how you spell it, but they say ‘Chister.’ Like they do Worcester.”

“Of course. Yet another ridiculous Bostonian pronunciation.”

“Anyway—”

“Sorry, J,” Bella interrupts me. “Delilah, circle back, honey. You’re too far away.” Turning back to me, she says, “Continue, please.”

“So I called in to try to win—”

“What was the question?”

“It was, ‘What’s the pencil sketch technique used in the “Take on Me” music video?’”

“Whatisthe pencil sketch technique used in the ‘Take on Me’ music video?”

“Rotoscoping.”

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