Page 113 of More Than Pen Pals

fifty-four

“Mom, can I talk to you for a minute?” I’m standing in her bedroom doorway as she unpacks her suitcase. Her flight arrived several hours late, and my nerves are almost shot.

“Of course. Come sit.” She pats the bed next to her.

I feel like a little boy coming to confess to mommy when I sink down onto her flowered bedspread, but I’m not suggesting an alternative.

“You have your date with Melissa tonight, right?” She gives me a knowing look. “What time are you picking her up?”

“About that …”

She stops in the middle of pulling a shirt out of her suitcase. “Ashley Theodore Hamilton, what have you done?”

I stop myself from groaning. “I … when you told me about the dinner with the Teagues, I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t dating anyone.”

Mom crosses her arms, the shirt still dangling from one of her hands. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“But there’s someone Iwantto date, and it’s not Melissa.”

“Then who is it?” she demands.

“I’ll get to that in a minute. Last Friday I was at the Cubs game, and I ran into Melissa. We talked about the dinner and discovered neither of us wanted to be set up. She recently broke up with a long-term boyfriend and isn’t ready to date again, and I’m interested in someone else. But we knew you and her mom wanted us to hit it off, so we pretended we did.”

“Ashley—”

I hold a hand up to stop her, shocking myself as much as her. “Let me finish, please. We did hit it off—as friends. Afterward we decided it wouldn’t hurt to go on a fake date so we could tell you we did and then maybe you’d ease up on us.”

She narrows her eyes. “So why did you decide to come clean?”

“Partly because I felt bad for deceiving you, but mostly because of the other woman.”

To my surprise, Mom gives a sharp nod of approval. “And who is she?”

“She works at Carter-Jenkins—”

“I knew it!” Mom jabs her finger at me. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t. It’s not Wendy—the woman Dad would’ve known about.” I take a deep breath. “Do you remember my pen pal from when I was a kid?”

“Les? Yes. What does he have to do with this?”

I close my eyes for a moment. “Because it turns out Les isn’t a boy.” I flinch when Mom’s hand goes to her stomach. “Leslie Beckett is a girl. Well, obviously, now she’s a woman, and we’re … well, it’s complicated.”

Mom puts her hands on the edge of the suitcase and grips it tightly while squeezing her eyes shut.

“You … I … Ashley, you have left me speechless for the first time in your life.”

Then she straightens, crooks her finger at me, and heads toward the door. “Come with me. You’re going to tell me this whole story, but I’m going to need a stiff drink.”

I trail her downstairs and into the sitting room.

She prepares herself a gin and tonic at the wet bar and then takes a seat in one of the two chairs by the fireplace. “Sit.”

I obey.

Mom tips her head. “Well?”

“When Leslie and I first started writing to each other, she thought I was a girl, and I thought she was a boy. We both assumed we got matched up with someone who was the same gender.”

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